Weirather gets past Gut
CRANS MONTANA, SWITZERLAND» Tina Weirather won a World Cup super-g event Saturday to overtake Lara Gut for first place in the discipline’s standings with one race left.
The Olympic bronze medalist from Liechtenstein overtook Gut to go to the top of the standings.
Weirather will carry a 46point lead over her Swiss rival, who finished the race in seventh, into the final event March 15 at the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden.
Weirather won the globe for the best super-g racer last season, edging Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia by five points. Set for another close showdown with Gut, Weirather called winning the trophy again “very important.”
“It’s the biggest prize you can win in our sport,” she said. “This means more than an Olympic medal, which is just one race and where luck always plays a part. But a globe is never a matter of luck.”
On a shortened course because of weather conditions, Weirather was timed in 1 minute, 2.17 seconds to beat Olympic silver medalist Anna Veith of Austria by 0.36 of a second. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland trailed by 0.38 in third place, her career best super-g result. Gut finished 0.59 off the lead.
The surprise gold medalist at the Pyeongchang Olympics last month, Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic, didn’t compete; she started in a snowboard parallel giant slalom in Turkey.
Also, overall World Cup leader Mikaela Shiffrin of Eaglevail and Vail’s Lindsey Vonn sat out the race. Shiffrin was preparing for this week’s technical races in Ofterschwang, Germany, while Vonn will race again only at the finals.
Shiffrin’s lead over Holdener, her only remaining rival for the overall championship, was reduced to 611 points Saturday.
The Swiss skier has been left with only a mathematical chance of closing the gap, with just seven races remaining.