scored a slalom point since recording an eighth-place finish at the second slalom of the season in
Aspen. “Normally I can fight through injuries, but head injuries are different. You can’t just grit your
teeth and go.”
American Sarah Schleper was also in the field but just missed her chance at scoring World Cup
points, finishing the first run in 32nd.
Giant Slalom, Feb. 6
Saturday’s GS was called early when fierce winds had race gates flat against the slope. Organizers,
coaches and racers decided to stick around for one more day to try to squeeze the race in before
Worlds.
The fog didn’t let go Sunday morning and officials gave it three more hours. At last, the sun broke
through, and the race began at the original second-run start time.
Viktoria Rebensburg took the victory to secure her second career World Cup (her first came at the
season opening race in Soelden) with a half-second advantage over Italian Federica Brignone in
second. Austrians Kathrin Zettel and Elisabeth Goergl finished third and fourth, respectively; Goergl
was tied with Anemone Marmottan of France.
“I’m just so happy to have won,” Rebensburg told Reuters. “I didn’t think about the World Championships at all. I just skied two confident runs. It’s pretty good timing.”
Rebensburg held a 0.74-second lead after the first run and gave up only a small portion of her advantage as Brignone charged to the fastest second-run time.
Canadian Marie-Pier Prefontaine led all North Americans in ninth place for her first career top- 10
World Cup finish. Vonn headed up the U.S. Team in 18th ahead of Julia Mancuso in 21st and Sarah
Schleper in 25th.
“They were so desperate to get this GS completed, we had to wait it out,” said U.S. head coach
Alex Hoedlmoser of the packed schedule. “But it always comes at an expense, especially for Lindsey and Julia who need to go straight into the super G and downhill training runs and then into the
tech races. It’s going to be a lot of days in a row and is far from ideal preparations for the World
Championships.”
The winner of the last three consecutive World Cup GS races, France’s Tessa Worley, stood second after the first run but slipped to 10th after struggling in the second run. She maintains the overall
GS lead with 358 points. Rebensburg stands second with 335 points.
Riesch landed 11th and bumped her overall lead on Vonn to 166 with 15 races remaining on the
World Cup schedule.
Hoeldmoser was encouraged by his team’s efforts. “Lindsey skied awesome in the steeps today;
it was fantastic, actually,” he said. “Then she started to back off a bit on that last breakover, but her
GS is still very strong. She just needs to keep the intensity all the way to the finish. Sarah definitely
has it. She makes some sweet turns and then makes mistakes and it just kills her, especially on a
tough course like we had today.”
