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SÖLDEN, Austria – Alpine snowboarding star Petra Vlhova plans to skip some World Cup races this season, abandoning the technique that helped her win the general title final yr.
Vlhova was the one skier who began in all 31 occasions of the ladies’s World Cup in 2020-21 however she and her crew, led by new head coach Mauro Pini, have determined towards sticking to such grueling schedule in an Olympic yr.
“We are going to go for extra high quality than amount,” Vlhova stated Thursday, two days earlier than the World Cup season begins with an enormous slalom on the Rettenbach glacier within the Austrian Alps.
The 2021-22 season, which incorporates the Beijing Olympics in February, consists of 36 World Cup races, evenly divided between technical and velocity races, plus one parallel occasion.
Vlhova plans to focus extra on her core occasions of slalom and GS, and solely resolve whether or not to compete in super-G or downhill races as they arrive.
“We are going to go in every single place however we’ll resolve earlier than the race if we go there for velocity or if we’ll keep extra targeted GS and slalom,” she stated. “In fact, I like velocity and I wish to race downhill and super-G, however it’s going to be extra GS and slalom.”
Vlhova is decided to develop into the primary skier from Slovakia to win an Olympic medal, after she entered 5 particular person occasions on the 2018 Pyeongchang Video games however didn’t make it onto the rostrum.
“Possibly final season the aim was the general, this yr the principle aim goes to be the Olympic Video games,” stated Vlhova, including she deliberate “to remain extra quiet and to arrange good” within the buildup to her second Olympics.
Vlhova beat former general champion Lara Intestine-Behrami to the title by 111 factors final season to develop into the primary general champion from Slovakia.
Nonetheless, she didn’t win a gold medal on the world championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, in February and misplaced her slalom season title the next month to Katharina Liensberger after a detailed struggle with the Austrian and American standout Mikaela Shiffrin.
Vlhova began working with Swiss coach Pini in Could, a month after she parted methods together with her longstanding coach Livio Magoni following unflattering remarks on Vlhova’s fashion of snowboarding reportedly made by Magoni in an interview with an Italian newspaper.
The cooperation with Pini, a former coach of Intestine-Behrami, has made Vlhova really feel comfortable going into the season of her title protection.
“I don’t really feel any stress. I attempt to give attention to my snowboarding, nothing extra. I attempt to keep calm and quiet,” she stated.
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