Valérie Grenier seemed to have wings during the first run of the giant slalom on Friday at the World Cup in Are, Sweden. However, things got tough for the Franco-Ontarian on her second run and she finally finished the day in sixth place.
“It’s a result that I would have found really good not so long ago. I don’t want to be too hard on myself, but right now I want more,” admitted the World Cup gold medalist in Kranjska Gora in January.
Nothing seemed to be able to slow her down at the start of the day as she posted the second fastest time in the first run at 55.74s. American Mikaela Shiffrin was the only skier to be faster than Grenier, then in good shape to win the second medal of her career on the circuit.
“I was really happy with the first run. I followed my game plan to the letter and I think I skied very well. It’s always nice to be at the top of the rankings from the start, ”launched Valérie Grenier in an interview with Sportcom.
The second run, however, was quite different for Grenier. Starting penultimate thanks to his morning time, the 26-year-old was unable to repeat his exploits of the first run. A loss of balance at the top of the course completely upset his plans.
“After a few turns, I fell a bit on my hip. I managed to get it all back pretty quickly, but I lost a lot of speed. It frustrated me and I was trying to go faster, but obviously it wasn’t the right thing to do. It created even more errors, it was a difficult descent,” she admitted.
Grenier could not do better than a time of 1 min 0.70 s, which gave him the 24e session time. Overall, she slipped to sixth place (+1.8 seconds), her fifth top 10 of the season.
Shiffrin’s second run was also a little slower than her first, but she still did enough to retain her lead and earn 86.e career World Cup victory. This triumph allows him to join the legendary Ingemar Stenmark at the pinnacle of alpine skiing history.
Third after the first heat, the Italian Federica Brignone climbed to second place at the end of the day of competition (+0.64 seconds). Sweden’s Sara Hector (+0.92 seconds) is on the third step of the podium.
The Are World Cup will continue on Saturday with the presentation of the slalom. Laurence St-Germain will be there for what will be her first competition since winning the World Championships on February 18.
For her part, Grenier will now turn to Andorra for the World Cup finals where she will want to end the season in style, on March 19, in the giant slalom event.