FLACHAU, Austria (AP) — Austrian skier Katharina Liensberger dominated the opening run of a women’s World Cup night slalom Tuesday, continuing her recent return to form with the home world championships three weeks away.
With injured slalom stars Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova missing, Liensberger had a free-flowing run under the floodlights to build a big lead of 0.75 seconds over Wendy Holdener of Switzerland.
Olympic giant slalom champion Sara Hector of Sweden trailed by 0.94 in third and was the only other finisher with less than a second to make up in the final run later Tuesday.
“My plan was to really attack from the first gate on, just to ski fast on the limit,” Liensberger said.
Zrinka Ljutic, who led the discipline standings after winning the last two slaloms, failed to qualify for the second run. The Croatian was slowed by a mistake early in her run and finished 3.70 seconds behind.
The 2025 Alpine skiing world championships take place in Saalbach-Hinterglemm on Feb. 4-16.
Liensberger upset Shiffrin and Vlhova four years ago when the Austrian took both the world championship and World Cup title in slalom.
The Austrian has won three World Cup slaloms, but none since March 2022. With two podiums and three more top-10 results, 2024-25 is Liensberger’s best campaign since.
Liensberger aims to become the first Austrian winner of the annual night race since Marlies Raich, then competing under her maiden name Schild, won it 14 years ago.
The last skier other than Shiffrin or Vlhova to win the race was Frida Hansdotter in 2017, a year before the Swede won Olympic slalom gold.
Shiffrin, who won the first two slaloms this season, is recovering from abdominal surgery to clean out a deep wound she suffered in a GS crash in November when chasing her 100th career victory.
The American started training on snow again last week but there is no date set for her return to racing.
Vlhova has been out since knee surgery a year ago.
Lindsey Vonn, who has made an impressive return to World Cup racing this season after nearly six years away from the circuit, competes only in the speed events of downhill and super-G and plans to race in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, next weekend.
AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
