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Swedish skier Anna Swen Larsson set the fastest opening run time on Sunday in the first women’s World Cup slalom in nearly 13 years, when neither Mikaela Shiffrin nor Petra Vlhova competed.
The American star and her Slovak rival are in an exciting showdown that has dominated women’s slalom racing for years, but both women are sidelined with knee injuries.
While Shiffrin hopes to return in the coming weeks, Vlhova tore ligaments in her right knee in January, ending her season.
Shiffrin landed from a downhill jump in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, and crashed into a safety net 16 days ago, injuring her left knee but avoiding ligament damage.
Larsson edged out Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Molzahn for second by 0.13 seconds. Croatian prodigy Zrinka Ljutic was third, 0.42 seconds behind, and the remaining riders had to make up more than six-tenths of a second in the final run later on Sunday.
The last World Cup slalom competition in which neither Shiffrin nor Vlhova competed was the 2010-11 season finals in Switzerland on March 18, 2011.
Since then, Shiffrin has failed on eight of her 117 rotations. The American holds a World Cup record in slalom with 58 wins, and together with Vlhova, she won 80 out of 117 events.
Shiffrin, who has won five of the eight slalom events and leads the season standings, could win the event title on Sunday even if she doesn’t score any points.
Lena Dewar, her only challenger to the world championship, trails the American by 228 points. If the German finishes Sunday’s race below 10th, she won’t be able to make up the difference in the remaining two races.
Dürer finished fifth in his first run, 0.66 seconds behind Larsson, but said he was “not affected at all” by his chances of closing in on the leader Shiffrin.
“Obviously with Petra and Mikaela not being there people will start asking me about it, but for me the approach to racing is exactly the same. It doesn’t change anything for me,” Duerr said.
If Shiffrin, a seven-time champion, wins the event title again, she will tie Lindsey Vonn and Ingemar Stenmark’s World Cup record of eight titles in one event. In downhill, Stenmark both in rotation and GS.
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