Hector wins at Kranjska Gora, Gut-Behrami and Rast next to the podium

The fourth World Cup giant slalom of the winter falls prey to Sara Hector. The 32-year-old Swede won in the absence of Mikaela Shiffrin, ahead of Lara Colturi and Alice Robinson. Lara Gut-Behrami is sixth, Camille Rast is 8th.

Hector was already leading by over a second after the first run and continued to increase his lead thereafter. Only two budding talents and the Austrian Julia Scheib, fourth, with the best time in the second heat, managed to keep the gap under two seconds. Italian Lara Colturi (18), who was heading to Albania and stood on the World Cup podium for the second time, lost 1.42 seconds to second place, while New Zealander Alice Robinson (23 years old) lost ten hundredths more.

Lara Gut-Behrami, who wore a scarf, was still quietly hoping for her first giant slalom podium of the winter after finishing fifth in the morning, but was unable to improve. “It’s not so easy to get on the podium in giant slalom at the moment. There is a lack of security, of confidence to attack hard,” declared the Ticino, who is still missing a victory in giant slalom to achieve her historic “triple-double”.

So far, only Pirmin Zurbriggen and Hermann Maier, and no women, have achieved double-digit World Cup victories in three different disciplines.

Sara Hector, Olympic champion in Beijing, continued her progress this winter with her well-deserved seventh World Cup victory. At the start in Sölden, the giant slalom specialist had to settle for 15th place after material problems during preparation. At Killington she won on a track as icy as at Kranjska Gora, and at Semmering she finished second.

Federica Brignone, who had won four of the last five giant slaloms and started the race as leader in the discipline standings, was eliminated in the first run with an inside ski error and is now 96 points behind Hector. Two places behind Gut-Behrami – and 10 and 18 positions ahead of Wendy Holdener and Michelle Gisin respectively – was Camille Rast, who had to cede the lead in the overall World Cup standings to the day’s winner.

We continue on Sunday in Kranjska Gora with a slalom. The first round starts at 10 a.m., the second at 1 p.m. The last victory of a Swiss woman on the Vitranc dates back to 1991, when Vreni Schneider triumphed at Stangenwald. (abu/nda)

It’s halftime at the Four Hills Tournament. During the first two competitions, the Austrians set the tone so much that the competition was already accusing them of cheating.

Anyone studying the results of the World Cup this winter will inevitably think of the cult comedy “The Man Speaks German”. Of the 36 podiums in the twelve individual competitions so far this winter, 22 have gone to Austria, nine to Germany, four to Switzerland’s Gregor Deschwanden and only one to an “external competitor”. Norwegian Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal took third place in Titisee-Neustadt.