Just before Mikaela Shiffrin attacks the giant’s second round, the parish is depressed: Tessa Worley has lost her balance at the exit of a door and has collapsed.
Worley (33) is a local legend.
She is French, she competes at home, she has been the giant’s world champion in 2013 and 2017, she is scoring the best partials and the public adore her.
He is descending fast although taking his risks, as he has not yet hunted anything in these World Cups in Courchevel and Méribel and the adventure ends this Sunday.
Worley is well placed, everything smiles at her, and then she gets lost and slips and goes off the course and goodbye.
His misstep ruins expectations and optimizes Shiffrin’s options.
Somewhat blurred in these World Cups, where she had barely picked up a podium -a silver in the SuperG-, Mikaela Shiffrin (27) has scored the best partial in the first round and now she is determined to reset. She is the queen of the World Cup, with her 85 victories, more than any other woman and only one less than Ingemar Stenmark, the absolute leader, but she still has outstanding debts.
For example, gold in the giant slalom, the only title that he has not won in a World Cup (among the specialties he disputes).
Now he’s going for it.
Shiffrin has scored the best partial in the first set and defends itself in the second. She doesn’t fly like anyone else has done in this heat (Alice Robinson, Marta Bassino, Nina O’Brien), but she suffices with the margin she had gained on the first descent.
When she crosses the arch, she executes a fetén gesture, the one that they all repeat: she turns towards the scoreboard and checks the timing. She discovers gold and raises her hands to her face, perhaps incredulous. The gesture betrays his state of anxiety: although it is the seventh world title of his career, he celebrates it as if there were no tomorrow.
She lets herself fall on the snow, she behaves like a child, like a girl playing with the snowflakes. And then she, definitely relieved, retires back to her winter quarters.
La italiana Federica Brignone, oro en la combinada, logra la plata (a 0s12 de Shiffrin). Y Ragnhild Mowinckel, Norway como los Ingebrigtsen, Karsten Warholm, Kristian Blummenfeldt, Casper Rudd, Magnus Carlsen o Erling Haland, se hace con el bronce.
On Saturday, Shiffrin gives himself another chance, this time in the slalom, possibly the event he handles best.
