Sara dominates Gora giant slalom

KRANJSKA GORA, Slovenia — Olympic champion Sara Hector won her second women´s World Cup giant slalom of the season as Italian skier Federica Brignone fell in the first run.

Hector, who was fastest in the first run, finished 1.42 seconds ahead of the 18-year-old Lara Colturi of Albania, to move atop both the GS and overall standings in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.

The 34-year-old Brignone´s hopes of extending her lead in the GS standings ended when she fell in her first race since extending her record as the oldest race winner in women´s World Cup history at Semmering in Austria last weekend.

Sweden’s Hector, who won the second race of the season in Killington in November, was second in Semmering.

She leads the GS standings with 296 points after four races, 96 ahead of Brignone, while she moved top of the overall leaderboard on 407 points, 24 ahead of Switzerland´s Camille Rast.

And she did it despite a seasonal cough. “It’s really amazing.” Hector said according to AP. “But I was resting a lot this week, so maybe it helped a little bit. When I’ve been training a lot, resting is a good recipe.”

Colturi celebrated her second World Cup podium place and Albania’s first in GS.

“I was feeling really confident in myself in the last week and finally I´ve made two really good runs,” said Colturi, who finished ahead of New Zealand’s Alice Robinson.

Ten years after he last won the Four Hills ski jumping tournament, Stefan Kraft let victory slip away with the final jump of the last competition.

The 31-year-old Kraft was made to wait for several tense minutes for strong winds to subside before his second jump, with Austrian teammate Daniel Tschofenig waiting at the bottom of the Bischofshofen hill leading the event and the overall Four Hills standings.

Kraft landed at 137.5 meters, three meters short of Tschofenig´s technically better jump, and scored fewer style points from the judges. It dropped first-round leader Kraft to third in the overall.

In the absence of the injured Mikaela Shiffrin, AJ Hurt was the leading American racer in Kranjska Gora, 2.73 behind Hector in 10th, ahead of teammate Nina O´Brien.

Swiss ski star Marco Odermatt, returned to winning ways in a men’s World Cup giant slalom in the French resort of Val d’Isere.

Last season’s overall, giant slalom, slalom and downhill champion has had a mixed campaign so far and failed to finish the first two giant slaloms.

He was quickest on the first run in heavy snowfall and did just enough in continued poor visibility on the second leg to win by just 0.08 seconds in 2 minutes 11.66 seconds.

Austrians Patrick Feurstein and Stefan Brennsteiner produced superb second runs while others fell to snatch second and third.

Overall and discipline standings leader Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway was fifth.

It was Odermatt’s 24th World Cup giant slalom win and 39th overall.

Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, who topped the discipline standings with a comeback win last week, struggled badly in France. His first run was way down the time sheets and he skied out second time.

The women have a downhill in Beaver Creek, Colorado later when Lindsey Vonn returns to World Cup action after over five years in retirement. She will race as a forerunner.

Odermatt, meanwhile, showed off his sensational skills to emphatically win the giant slalom at the Alpine Ski World Cup in Alta Badia, Italy.

Despite tricky conditions on the Gran Risa piste, the overall World Cup leader powered to victory in 2:31.45.

France’s Leo Anguenot was 0.85 seconds behind the Swiss in second place, with Norwegian Alexander Steen Olsen in third. Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen could finish only ninth, coming in nearly two seconds behind Odermatt.

With his 41st victory, Odermatt has now become the most successful Swiss male skier in World Cup history. “It has been a hard week with the downhill in Val Gardena and now here GS, so I’m very happy I could make the switch to the GS turns and having another victory here is amazing,” Odermatt said.

“I think every run is different down here. It was very difficult with the changing conditions. But in the second run, I felt better. Also, after the inspection, I saw that the underground is better, so I knew I can ski my plan, I can attack, it’s less dangerous. So I just found my flow.”