Is women's slalom changing? On Sunday in Zagreb the answer, with a scary Liensberger

Tomorrow the fourth seasonal race on the Sljeme hill (with 10% of the prize money donated to the earthquake victims). The approach of the big names and a statistic that indicates the Austrian fastest of all, counting the six heats so far disputed, without ever winning; according to Camilla Alfieri, the 23-year-old from Vorarlberg is the one who skies better now.

Saturday 2 January 2021 6 minutes reading time

No longer just Shiffrin vs Vlhova, coincidentally first and second with reversed roles in the last two editions of the slalom in Zagreb (the last different winner was Velez Zuzulova in 2017, with Mikaela who forked and Petra second for a historic Slovakian double), but a slalom female open to more solutions and very interesting, thinking about Sunday's race in the Croatian capital. The fourth specialty of the season opens the 2021 of the World Cup and comes after the battle of Semmering, which saw Michelle Gisin and Katharina Liensberger precede the two queens of slalom, with the streak of victories. Shiffrin-Vlhova interrupted at 28 consecutive games. Tomorrow (starting at 12.30 with the 1st heat, the second at 16.00) will be a particular race also for what happened in the country during the week, with the seismic tremors that upset the areas around Zagreb (and that had the dispute of the two slalom itself is in danger, with the men protagonists on Wednesday 6 January); it was therefore decided to donate 10% of the prize money to the people affected by the earthquake, with Vedran Pavlek, director of the Croatian alpine skiing sector, who guaranteed at least 50 thousand euros of economic support. Returning to the sporting aspect, we expect nothing more than the redemption of Shiffrin and Vlhova, who worked in the days around New Year respectively on the snows of Reiteralm and Ladurns, as they did in the pre-Christmas period. Will it be enough to get back in front immediately? A change has been seen, in terms of competitiveness of the 2-3 athletes who have always remained quite distant from the dominatrixes of the specialty, while the void behind the “top 7”, let's summarize it like this, is really important. If Holdener was conditioned by the injury at the end of the summer (but it could come ...) and Swenn-Larsson is out until the end of the season, Liensberger and Gisin have thought about raising the bar. There is a particular statistic to note after the first three slalom disputed: Katharina Liensberger was the fastest on the 6 heats between Levi (double race) and Semmering, despite not managing to seize that first victory in the World Cup that still she misses it. Vorarlberg's '97 class, the only one to ever get on the podium this season, precedes Petra Vlhova by 18 cents, Mikaela Shiffrin by half a second and Michelle Gisin by 54 cents. Is she ready to unlock? According to Camilla Alfieri, Eurosport's technical voice, "the Austrian is the one who currently skies perhaps best of all, she is seeing something new since she has this great ability to always keep the skis glued to the ground": this is the thought of the former blue, expressed during the in-depth analysis conducted by Enrico Spada on the web TV “Sport2U”. And if Katharina were to finally win in the maximum circuit, she would break the longest fast in Austria for a single discipline, since the eagles have not won in slalom since November 30, 2014, when Nicole Hosp triumphed in Aspen.

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