Laurence St-Germain was in excellent shape after a round at the slalom World Cup on Tuesday, on the floodlit slope in Flachau, Austria. His second run, however, tarnished a most encouraging start to the day.
All hopes were high for the skier from Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, provisionally seventh at the end of her first descent. The one who aimed for a second top 10 this season got off to a good start on the second occasion, but things took a turn for the worse halfway through.
A loss of balance at the exit of a turn made St-Germain slightly deviate from her trajectory and she was deported to her right. She then attempted damage control, unsuccessfully, missing a doorway just moments later.
The 28-year-old athlete was still able to complete the course. She slammed on the brakes to retrace her steps and resume her journey to the finish line, but the damage was done. His cumulative time of 2 min 0.21 s finally gave him the 22e square.
“There was a gate on a change of pitch and I got caught. There are a lot of bumps like that on the track here and it makes the race quite difficult. I did everything to try to pass, but it didn’t work,” commented St-Germain a few hours after the competition.
“Fortunately, I was able to backtrack through the gate and finish the race,” she continued. It does not give me an extraordinary result, but at least it allows me to have some points for the classification for the next outings. »
Visibly disappointed with the conclusion of her working day, St-Germain will still leave Austria with positive notes in her notebook, starting with her performance in the first round.
“I was really happy with my run, it feels good! I have adapted my game plan since my race at Semmering at the end of December and I executed it really well at the start of the day, ”analyzed the one who intends to recover at the next opportunity.
“Before Christmas, I wasn’t attacking in the right way, but I practiced that a lot in training and I see that I can do it in competition. On the other hand, it will be necessary to execute during the two runs, which I had difficulty doing since the beginning of the season. There’s always a little stress to get two good runs together and I’ll have to be able to do that to get better results,” she concluded.