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This weekend, Petra Vlhova will head to the slope she is aware of higher than anybody to attempt to regain management over her marketing campaign to ship Slovakia its first total title. It’s a homecoming that would not be higher timed as she trails Lara Intestine-Behrami by 187 factors within the total and can’t wait one other race to reverse the momentum. The deficit is just not insurmountable with 4 slaloms comprising practically half the remaining 9 races on the calendar. The near-flawless command Intestine-Behrami has in GS, SG and DH means Vlhova can’t falter, and a last-minute swap within the calendar would possibly assist.
On account of inclement climate the organizers in Jasna have moved the slalom to tomorrow and pushed the GS to Sunday. Though she’ll be up towards the best slalom skier of all time, Mikaela Shiffrin, and world champion Kathi Liensberger, each of whom spent the final 9 days resting and coaching, Vlhova is pretty much as good a guess as any to land someplace on the rostrum. And that may simply present the spark her big slalom has lacked within the final month. If she will be able to take roughly a 3rd of the deficit out of the Swiss’ lead within the total by the tip of the weekend, it may very well be the psychological nudge she’ll have to maintain pushing by the ultimate two weeks of the season.
Vlhova will concurrently be making an attempt to carry off Liensberger, Shiffrin and Michelle Gisin within the race for the slalom title. With all three skiers inside 80 factors of the Slovak’s lead, it’s inside every skiers’ management to grab the title. Shiffrin has finished all the things she will be able to to make good on her mission to “discover two extra seconds in my slalom,” as she instructed reporters after she trailed Liensberger by simply that a lot on the earth championships. In accordance with her coach Mike Day, she skied eight of the 9 days between Cortina and their arrival in Slovakia, six of these days within the slalom gates with a specific emphasis on the high-speed units which have been the hallmark of 2021. After a glimpse of tomorrow’s first run set, Day confirmed that the method was time properly spent. It’s a ripper.
As for the GS standings, Italy’s Marta Bassino appears like she will be able to coast to the end to take residence that title along with her 124-point lead and two races remaining. She’s gained 4 races, completed third in one other and solely a second-run DNF saved her from reaching the rostrum in each World Cup GS she has began. If her type on the current world championship is any indication, her hearth is fading ever so barely. Maybe she feels it, as she determined simply right this moment to skip the slalom to focus solely on the Sunday GS. Given the occasions of the Cortina championship, the enormous slalom podium has a couple of extra suitors. If not for very large errors, each Liensberger and Nina O’Brien could be sporting GS medals. Add them to the checklist of standard contenders, equivalent to Shiffrin, Intestine-Behrami, Tessa Worley, Fede Brignone, and a returning-to-form Alice Robinson. Now, you perceive simply how necessary tomorrow is for Petra Vlhova to succeed in Sunday with momentum.
It may very well be one of the vital necessary weekends of her profession, as she returns to the place she grew up racing, to the hill that opened only for her final spring in the course of the Covid lockdown, the place she has returned all through the season to coach. That is her second.
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