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Slovak Petra Vlhova edged American Mikaela Shiffrin, making her return from Covid-19, for a hat-trick of wins within the girls’s World Cup slalom in Zagreb on Tuesday.
Vlhova made essentially the most of sporting the No.1 bib on a piste made tough due to excessive temperatures, ending 0.64sec forward of Shiffrin on the primary run.
Shiffrin, who lies atop the general World Cup standings, is aware of the Croatian slope nicely, having gained the Snow Queen Trophy there 4 instances beforehand.
And the 26-year-old, who introduced final week that she had contracted coronavirus — spending a time period in isolation that noticed her miss two races in Lienz, Austria — put all the things into the second run.
“To ski so nicely after a lot time sat in a room with out snowboarding is sweet,” she mentioned.
“Some athletes discover it laborious to return again, I really feel fortunate I have been capable of come again rapidly.
“I had the absolute best situation for a constructive case,” she added.
She quickly topped the mixed instances earlier than Vlhova stored her nerve to clock a successful 1min 56.99sec for her twenty fourth World Cup victory and sixteenth within the slalom. It was additionally the Slovakian’s fourth victory in 5 slalom races this season.
Shiffrin was second, 0.50sec adrift, with Austria’s world slalom champion Katharina Liensberger, who additionally contracted Covid in December, rounding out the rostrum.
“I simply wished to give attention to my snowboarding to be as clear as attainable across the gates,” mentioned Vlhova, whose rivalry with Shiffrin has seen the pair win 37 of the 40 World Cup slalom races held during the last 4 seasons.
“It was very robust, the circumstances had been removed from excellent. I am very comfortable to win right here once more. It is not straightforward to nail down back-to-back victories, I at all times have stress.”
Comparatively unknown Canadian Ali Nullmeyer, seventeenth after the primary run, clocked the quickest descent on the second time of asking.
Shiffrin now has 830 factors within the general standings, 115pts forward of Vlhova, whose Zagreb victory noticed her leapfrog absent Italian velocity specialist Sofia Goggia (657).
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