Gut-Behrami wins GS and cuts Shiffrin's overall lead to 95 points with the American out injured
SAN VIGILIO DI MAREBBE, Italy (AP) — Lara Gut-Behrami won a World Cup giant slalom by a large margin on Tuesday and trimmed Mikaela Shiffrin’s lead in the overall standings to 95 points with the American out injured.
Gut-Behrami beat Alice Robinson of New Zealand and Olympic champion Sara Hector, who tied for second, by 1.09 seconds on the steep Erta course at the Kronplatz resort.
Shiffrin crashed in a downhill on Friday in nearby Cortina d’Ampezzo and avoided major injury after hitting the safety nets at high speed but was still banged up and hasn’t raced since because of issues with her left knee. Shiffrin led Gut-Behrami by 420 points before she crashed.
“Mikaela is doing relatively well under the circumstances. Nothing serious has happened: no broken bones, no torn ligaments," U.S. Alpine director Patrick Riml told Austrian broadcaster ORF. "She is currently in Innsbruck, doing rehab, and we hope she will be back on the World Cup in the near future.
“The MCL is a bit sprained,” Riml added. “She had that bone bruise from the crash in Levi, that was the same knee, so that all has developed a bit negatively again.”
Riml then told Swiss broadcaster SRF: “We hope that in the next, hard to say, 10, 14, maybe 20 days, she will return to the World Cup.”
Gut-Behrami won a super-G in Cortina on Sunday and extended her advantage atop the giant slalom standings following GS wins in Soelden, Austria, and Killington, Vermont, at the start of the season.
With her 42nd career victory, Gut-Behrami moved level with Anja Pärson in sixth place on the all-time women's victory list. Among Swiss women, only Vreni Schneider has more wins with 55.
“To do something like that, it’s unbelievable,” Gut-Behrami said. “I’m happy about my skiing but right now I don’t really have a clear mind to understand what’s going on. But I’m happy and tired.”
Shiffrin holds the record with 95 wins and broke Lindsey Vonn’s previous women’s mark of 82 victories with a triumph at Kronplatz last year — then won another GS the following day on the Erta.
This was the first tech race (slalom or giant slalom) that Shiffrin has missed since Lienz, Austria, in December 2021 when she tested positive for the coronavirus.
Ragnhild Mowinckel finished fourth and downhill specialist Sofia Goggia finished fifth for her best giant slalom result in more than six years.
Because of a series of crashes, other top giant slalom skiers are also out injured, including Petra Vlhova (torn right knee ligaments), Valerie Grenier (left shoulder and knee) and Michelle Gisin (right tibia).
With races in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, this weekend canceled because of a lack of snow, the women have a break until giant slalom and slalom races in Soldeu, Andorra, on Feb. 10-11.
“This is something everyone needs," Gut-Behrami said. "It’s good sometimes that a race gets canceled. I hope I can keep on skiing like that in Soldeu.”
___
AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/skiing
