MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO, Italy – Clement Noel of France led a men´s World Cup slalom in Italy as Olympic gold medallist Petra Vlhova of Slovakia, overtook Mikaela Shiffrin to win World Cup slalom in France.
The French alpine ski racer put down a consistent run on the Canalone Miramonti course without clocking the fastest time in any of the four sections. He built a lead of 0.37 seconds over Swiss skier Loic Meillard and Norway’s Timon Haugan, who shared second position.
Albert Popov was the fastest starter and still led Noel until the Bulgarian skier lost nearly a half-second in the final section, leaving him in fourth place and with 0.42 to make up in the final run.
“The snow is really easy, the course setting was really easy, so it´s never easy to be fast,” Noel said. “I tried to push hard, I tried to ski calm.”
Noel´s 10th and last career victory was 11 months ago, also in a floodlit event – the annual night race in Schladming, Austria.
The Frenchman started this season 12th in the only previous slalom. That race in Gurgl, Austria, ended with a sweep of the podium by the home team; Manuel Feller won ahead of Marco Schwarz and Michael Matt.
After the opening run, Schwarz was the leading Austrian in sixth, trailing Noel by 0.50 seconds. Feller was 0.68 off the lead.
Schwarz will go top of the overall standings if he wins the race, overtaking two-time defending overall champion Marco Odermatt. The Swiss skier does not compete in slaloms.
Slalom world champion Henrik Kristoffersen was 0.88 off the pace in 12th.
Olympic gold medalist Vlhova overtook Shiffrin to win World Cup slalom in Courchevel, France.
Vlhova earned her 30th World Cup win (21st in slalom) by 24 hundredths over Shiffrin combining times from two runs under a mix of snow and rain. Shiffrin led Vlhova by 17 hundredths after the first run, an advantage that slowly evaporated in her second run.
“It’s not possible to beat her unless I’m 100%,” Shiffrin said.
Vlhova was the lone skier within one second of Shiffrin in the first run. Shiffrin was the lone skier within two seconds of Vlhova after two runs.
Vlhova denied Shiffrin a record-extending 92nd World Cup win and what would have been Shiffrin’s first winning streak in World Cup slaloms in four years.
Vlhova won the first slalom this season, and Shiffrin won the next two leading into Courchevel. There are 11 total World Cup slaloms on this season’s schedule through March.
Vlhova won the most slaloms on the circuit in 2020 and 2021. But Shiffrin has nine World Cup slalom wins between 2022 and 2023 to Vlhova’s six, though Vlhova won the biggest title of that stretch at last year’s Olympics.
Shiffrin earned her 79th career World Cup slalom podium, two shy of Swede Ingemar Stenmark’s record for podiums in any single Alpine skiing event. Last March, Shiffrin broke Stenmark’s record of 86 World Cup wins across all Alpine events.
