Vlhova wins second straight slalom as Shiffrin winds up third

Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova made it two slalom wins in a row over Edwards’ Mikaela Shiffrin in a night World Cup race in Flachau, Austria, Tuesday, and Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson turned in the fastest second-run time to relegate Shiffrin to third.

Vlhova, who beat Shiffrin by more than a second in the last slalom event earlier this year in Zagreb, Croatia, topped Swenn Larsson by .10 seconds and Shiffrin by .43 Tuesday in Flachau.

Shiffrin, who failed to finish a tough super-G portion of an alpine combined over the weekend – only her second DNF in nearly two years – still holds the overall World Cup lead by more than 200 points.

Vlhova, who crashed in that same super-G last weekend, leap-frogged back into second overall with her second straight slalom win after Shiffrin had won six in a row.

Vlhova is now at 613 points with the 100-point win. Shiffrin picked up 60 points for third and now leads Vlhova with 886 points as she seeks what would be her American record fourth straight overall title.

Here’s the press release from the International Ski Federation:

Rivalry is part of the game, and, typically, there is among the strongest athletes in the world. Some win and some lose and today it was Petra Vlhova’s turn for the second race in a row after Zagreb’s victory. 

Petra Vlhova built a lead of six-tenths of a second over Mikaela Shiffrin in the opening run, and after charging the second part of the race, she posted a combined time of one minute and 53.65 seconds to edge out Sweden’s Anna Swenn-Larsson by only 0.10sec. 

The Slovakian fans went crazy as soon as Petra crossed the finish line and has been crowned Snow Space Princess for the second in a row with her 12th World Cup victory. 

Anna Swenn-Larsson would have been dreaming of becoming the first woman other than Vlhova and Shiffrin to win a slalom in 25 races after seeing the latter fail to beat her time even clocking the fastest time of the second run. 

Shiffrin, who was second after the opening run, came 0.43 behind in third and she is still leading Vlhova in the overall World Cup standings by 273 points and the slalom standings by 80 points.

The floodlit race in Austria with 14,800 spectators had the highest prize fund on the women’s World Cup this season, with Vlhova receiving 70,000 euros for the win.

The women’s World Cup moves to Sestriere, Italy, for a giant slalom and parallel giant slalom on Saturday and Sunday.