Injured Shiffrin cedes Cup overall lead to rival
For Lara Gut-Behrami, ski racing isn't all about winning races any more. It's just as much about avoiding injuries, too.
The Swiss star overtook the absent Mikaela Shiffrin on top of the women's World Cup overall standings with a giant slalom victory on Saturday in Soldeu, Andorra.
Enjoying a three-race winning streak, Gut-Behrami raised her season's tally to 1,214 points, five more than Shiffrin, who sits out this weekend's races to nurse a left knee injury.
“I learned a lot from my injuries,” Gut-Behrami said. “My first priority is to come to the end of the season. Sometimes we forget that and we only talk about points or wins, but somehow it's more about skiing great and staying safe.”
Gut-Behrami learned that lesson seven years ago. She was the defending champion when she tore the ACL in her left knee near the end of the season and dropped out of a duel with Shiffrin for the 2016-17 overall title.
This time, it's the American who is out injured.
Shiffrin hurt her knee, but avoided damage to the ligaments, while landing from a jump and crashed into the safety netting at a downhill in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, 16 days ago.
Gut-Behrami finished second in that race and has racked up 345 points in the four events that Shiffrin has missed since.
“Yes, but this is probably one month too early,” Gut-Behrami said with a smile on regaining the lead in the overall standings with 14 races left until the season ends on March 23.
Shiffrin will also skip today's slalom in Andorra as her return to racing is yet unclear. Gut-Behrami does not compete in that discipline.
Gut-Behrami is after her second overall title; Shiffrin can win her sixth.
“For the overall World Cup, this season has shown us that you have to be fast and you have to be healthy. That will always be my top priority,” said Gut-Behrami, who also led the standings after winning the season-opening race in Austria in October.
Many top skiers have been involved in serious crashes lately and suffered season-ending injuries, including Petra Vlhova, Valerie Grenier and Corinne Suter, and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Alexis Pinturault and Marco
Schwarz on the men's circuit.
On Saturday, Gut-Behrami came from a long way behind and improved from ninth position after the opening run to edge out New Zealand's Alice Robinson by one-hundredth of a second. Shiffrin's teammate AJ Hurt finished 0.15 behind in third for the American's first career podium in giant slalom.
“I am just so happy about the win. It was a tough race, I missed completely the first run, I didn't come into speed,” said Gut-Behrami, who finished 0.61 seconds off the pace in the morning session.
Marta Bassino led Federica Brignone for an Italian one-two finish in the opening run, but they dropped to sixth and fourth, respectively.
Bassino was the junior world GS champion 10 years ago. She won the World Cup title in the discipline in 2021 but has won just one World Cup race over the last three years.
Most racers struggled and lost time on a bump in a right turn near the end of the course. GutBehrami did as well, but the rest of her run was near-flawless.
“Second run was good, I just attacked. I had a big mistake on the finish so I'm really happy that in the end it worked out,” she said. “Everything I was missing in the first run, I wanted to show in the second run. The course was nice, I enjoyed that.”
Hurt continued her breakthrough World Cup season with her second career podium, and first in GS.
“I think I just went as hard as I could. I was like, I'm going to go all out, either I fall out or I I'm going to make it to the finish hopefully really fast,” said the California native, who was out injured for almost the whole of last season.
“I was just excited to come back, excited to be back to ski racing at all. So, this is really crazy to have this.”
Hurt earned her first podium when placing third at a slalom in Slovenia five weeks ago, and had two top-10 results in GS before Saturday's race.
American teammate Paula Moltzan finished 11th.
• Swiss star Marco Odermatt dominated a men's World Cup giant slalom in Bansko, Bulgaria, to claim his ninth straight win in the discipline.
Odermatt wasn't clean on the icy steep middle part of the Banderitza course in either run. But he gained time on his competitors in all other sections as he extended his lead from the first leg to finish 0.91 seconds ahead of runner-up Alexander Steen Olsen of Norway.
Austrian skier Manuel Feller was 1.08 behind in third as the top three kept their positions from the first run.
“For sure, the confidence is on the highest level and everything is working well. The skiing is perfect and I just have fun skiing,” said Odermatt, who has 20 wins from 60 career starts in the discipline.
Odermatt, who is the Olympic and world GS champion, has won 10 World Cup races in total this season, including all six giant slaloms.
The two-time overall champion becomes the first male skier since
Hermann Maier more than two decades ago to win 10 World Cup races in consecutive seasons.
Odermatt is rapidly closing in on his third big crystal globe, after raising his season's total to 1,506 points and extending his lead in the overall standings to 822 points over second-placed Cyprien Sarrazin. The French skier does not compete in the technical events.
Saturday's victory left Odermatt five wins short of the record for the most GS wins in a row, set by Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark, who won 14 straight in the late 1970s.
Odermatt had not triumphed in Bansko before. In 2021, the last time the men's World Cup visited Bulgaria, he finished fifth and second, respectively, in two giant slaloms.
“I really like to be here. It's a good crowd, it's different to all the other races. Great hill, great conditions, fun slope to ski,” he said.
“The first run was very turny and difficult for tactics, and the second one was really about to push,” said Odermatt, who led Steen Olsen by 0.35 after the opening run.
A slalom on the same hill is scheduled for today.
Ahead of swimming events starting today, Australia's three golds is best of the rest of the world behind the Chinese wave of success in Doha.
Cheng and Shi had taken silver in the mixed duet technical event last weekend, and improved on that in Aspire Dome arena performing a routine on the theme of “Romeo and Juliet.”
“Winning the gold medal at the World Championship on the Chinese New Year is indeed a great feeling,” Cheng said.
Their score of 224.1437 points was more than 15 points ahead of silver medalists Mireia Hernandez and Dennis Gonzalez of Spain. Bronze went to Mexico's Trinidad Meza and Diego Villalobos.
Yang's sixth world title was his first individual success, and added to the gold he won Thursday in synchronized 10-meter platform with partner Lian Junjie.
Yang's points total of 564 was more than 10 ahead of teammate Cao Yuan. Ukrainian teenager Oleksiy Sereda took bronze, as he did Thursday in the synchro with partner Kirill Boliukh.
In the mixed synchro diving, Keeney regained the title she had won five years ago with a different partner, Matthew Carter.
Keeney and Bedggood scored more than 300 points to win by 13 over Italian pair Chiara Pellacani and Matteo Santoro. Bronze medals went to Kim Su-ji and Yi Jaegyeong of South Korea.
Keeney's gold followed silver in Doha in the women's 3-meter springboard synchro, with Anabelle Smith — the pair that took bronze at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics — and bronze in the mixed team event.
In women's water polo, Australia, Canada, Greece and the Netherlands advanced to the quarterfinals.