Swedish skier Sara Hector waited seven years for another victory since her first giant slalom World Cup win in December 2014. Now, she has won two more races in 10 days and has been on the podium in each of the last four. evidence.
To top it off, she edged out Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin to the top of the discipline standings on Saturday.
“I’m in shock, it feels so good,” Hector said after the third victory of his career.
Héctor posted the best time in both races on a demanding field used primarily in the men’s World Cup. She extended her narrow lead in the first race to .96 seconds over French world runner-up Tessa Worley.
Shiffrin improved from 14th place after the opening race to seventh, 2.05 seconds behind Hector, who now leads the American by 46 points in the GS season standings.
“It’s really amazing. It felt great, but you never know. I felt like maybe I’m too round because I feel easy, ”said Hector, who became the first Swedish skier since Jessica Lindell-Vikarby eight seasons ago to top the GS standings.
Lindell-Vikarby won the GS bronze at the 2015 world championships in Beaver Creek, Colorado, and was the top-ranked GS rider near the end of the 2013-14 World Cup season. She was eventually overtaken by Anna Veith, the two-time Austrian overall champion who was competing with her maiden name Fenninger at the time.
“Jessica has been a huge inspiration to me all those years,” Hector said. “Thinking about it, she did it later … not like Mikaela’s age, like a super young woman pushing through.”
Hector said her years on the Swedish team with Lindell-Vikarby, who retired at 31 in the summer of 2015, have helped her.
“It has been good to have someone to look up to when you are going through a difficult time and facing challenges,” said Héctor. “If you work hard and with a good goal, you can suddenly turn around and come out better.”
Fortunes have certainly turned for Hector at a good time, with the Olympic Giant Slalom just 30 days away. The February 7 race opens the women’s alpine ski calendar in Beijing.
GS World Cup champion Marta Bassino came in third on Saturday, while Valérie Grenier came in fourth as the Canadian skier equaled her career-best World Cup result.
Shiffrin had won the first two giant slalom this season and was runner-up to Hector in the third, but had to stay out of the next GS in Austria last week after testing positive for Covid-19.
The American stretched her lead in the overall World Cup standings to 135 points behind Petra Vlhova, who finished 15th.
Some of the pre-race favorites struggled at the challenging Podkoren circuit, which is an annual stop on the men’s circuit.
World champion Lara Gut-Behrami, racing for the first time in nearly four weeks after a coronavirus infection, was only 17th after the opening race, but improved to fifth.
Shiffrin’s American teammate Paula Moltzan had a nasty-looking accident in her second race, but “okay,” the US ski team said. he said on twitter.
Spectators were not allowed into the race, which had moved from another Slovenian station, Maribor, due to lack of snow. A slalom on the same track is scheduled for Sunday.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism