Killington (United States) (AFP) – Switzerland’s Camille Rast won the Killington slalom on Sunday, taking full advantage of the absence of injured Mikaela Shiffrin to capture her first alpine World Cup victory with an outstanding second run. Rast, 25, powered from third to first with a 52.88sec second leg that gave her a total time of 1min 46.87sec. It was a tie for second behind her between Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson and Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener, who both finished 57-hundredths of a second back. Swenn Larsson, second after the opening run, was just 10th-quickest on the second while Holdener roared from ninth with the best second leg of the day. German veteran Lena Duerr, leading after the first run, finished fourth. It was the second time at Killington that Swenn Larsson and Holdener found themselves tied — they shared victory in the slalom in Vermont two years ago.
US superstar Shiffrin, winner of six slaloms at Killington, was sidelined after suffering a puncture wound to her abdomen and “severe muscle trauma” in a crash in Saturday’s giant slalom. The crash temporarily derailed Shiffrin’s bid for a once unimaginable 100th World Cup victory, and the US ski team said Sunday it was not yet clear when the 29-year-old would be able to resume her pursuit of the milestone. Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time World Cup overall champion, was leading when she crashed out late in the second leg of the race won by Sara Hector and was taken from the course on a sled. Although she was having difficulty moving, scans showed that “bones and internal organs look OK” and no ligament damage was found, the US federation said.
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While the two giant slaloms scheduled for Tremblant, Canada, next weekend have been cancelled due to lack of snow, Shiffrin confirmed to broadcaster NBC on Sunday that she didn’t expect to be able to ski at Beaver Creek, Colorado, in two weeks’ time. “Right now I’m pretty limited in doing anything,” said Shiffrin, who said she still wasn’t sure how the unusual puncture injury occurred. “We’re just not totally sure how I got punctured,” said Shiffrin, who crashed going into the steep final section of the course and tumbled through a gate into the catch-fencing. “Probably hitting the gate at some point,” said Shiffrin, who called the puncture “basically a hole through my oblique.”
The race was also missing Shiffrin’s great slalom rival Petra Vlhova, who has yet to race this season after knee surgery last February. Rast, coming off third-place finishes in a slalom in Austria and Saturday’s giant slalom, seized her opportunity. “It’s just incredible,” she said of her first career win. “I did a good job this summer. I worked really good on the mental side, too, and now it’s paying off.”
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