Quebecer Laurence St-Germain is world slalom champion!
The skier from Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges caused a huge surprise by winning the slalom of the Méribel World Championships on Saturday.
Third after the first heat, St-Germain moved into the lead after his descent in the second.
” Impossible ! “, reacted the 28-year-old athlete, big smile and now assured of a podium, which she has never succeeded in the World Cup.
After the fault of the Swiss Wendy Holdener, who was still leading the race at two thirds of the final round, only the hyper favorite the American Mikaela Shiffrin remained to dislodge St-Germain.
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PHOTO FABRICE COFFRINI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Laurence St-Germain won her title by 0.57 seconds.
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PHOTO LIONEL BONAVENTURE, FRANCE PRESS AGENCY
The Quebecer showed a huge smile on the podium.
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PHOTO LEONHARD FOEGER, REUTERS
All members of the Canadian team celebrated with Laurence St-Germain on the podium.
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PHOTO LIONEL BONAVENTURE, FRANCE PRESS AGENCY
Laurence St-Germain did not seem to believe in her first place by looking at her time at the bottom of the track.
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PHOTO ALEKSANDRA SZMIGIEL, REUTERS
Mikaela Shiffrin congratulated Laurence St-Germain as Lena Duerr looked on.
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The quadruple world champion in the discipline, who nevertheless had a cushion of 0.61 seconds at the start, was never able to match her, committing several unusual faults before crossing the line in second place, at 0 .57 seconds from the gold medalist.
” Congratulation ! » launched Shiffrin to St-Germain. Obviously in shock, the new champion had to ask the bronze medalist, the German Lena Dürr (+0.69), where she should be placed for the official ceremony.
“It’s a little weird,” St-Germain reacted to the FIS microphone shortly after.
Of course, I didn’t really expect that. It’s incredible !
Laurence St Germain
The gold medalist admitted to being “really stressed” at the top of the course. “I attacked, I made a small mistake, but I continued to the bottom. It worked, I guess…”
St-Germain took a few seconds to find the scoreboard. “When I saw the ‘1’, I said to myself: ‘It can’t happen, it’s impossible!’ »
At her first Worlds in 2019, the technician placed sixth in Äre, Sweden. She was over 17e in Cortina two years ago, the same result as at the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
She had never done better than sixth in the World Cup, in Levi, Finland, at the start of the 2020-21 season.
After a rocky start to the season, she took seventh place in her last start at Spindleruv Mlyn, Czechia, enough to give her confidence for her third Worlds, where she only wanted to think about her execution, reserving “the surprise” as to the result…
Shelved from the Canadian team a few years ago, the Quebecer returned to the University of Vermont where she earned a degree in computer science. She is currently studying biomedical engineering at the University of Montreal.
St-Germain’s medal is the fourth for Canada in Méribel/Courchevel. James Crawford hit hard from the start by winning the super-G last week. Cameron Alexander followed up with bronze in the super-G. Valérie Grenier, Britt Richardsson and brothers Erik and Jeffrey Read also took bronze in the mixed team parallel event.
This world title is a first for a Canadian woman since the triumph of Mélanie Turgeon in the downhill at Saint-Moritz in 2003. In slalom, we must go back to Anne Heiggtveit and her gold medal at the Squaw Valley Games in 1960, at a when the Olympics served as the Worlds. Nancy Greene won silver eight years later in Grenoble.
The race will air on CBC at 5 p.m.