Ski World Cup, today the women’s race: Mikaela Shiffrin is back, it will be a challenge with Vlhova
ZAGREB. Zagreb is once again hosting the first races of the year of the Alpine Skiing World Cup with two special slalom races on the Sljeme hill, just outside the Croatian capital. Today it’s the women’s slalom (12.30 and 16.05) and tomorrow the men’s slalom with afternoon heats at 15.30 and 18.45. In the women’s race, as has been known for some time, Italy still has little to say and will send Lara Della Mea, Marta Rossetti, Anita Gulli, Sophie Mathiou to the track, given that Vera Tschurtschenthaler was stopped in extremis by a positivity to Covid -19. Federica Brignone instead preferred to desert the appointment to concentrate on the most important disciplines for her, especially giant and super-G.
The favorite for today, and dominator of the past edition, is the Slovak Petra Vhlova but will also have to contend with the American Mikaela Shiffrin, who still seemed to stand still due to the contagion that had forced her to desert the two end-of-year tests in Lienz . Instead, the last buffer was negative and so the queen of tight posts will be able to defend her leadership in the general classification.
Tomorrow it will be the men’s turn with Italy who will field Stefano Gross, Manfred Moelgg, Giuliano Razzoli, Alex Vinatzer, Tommaso Sala and Simon Maurberger. Three of the Azzurri in the race have very positive precedents on the Croatian track. At the moment the most fit is Vinatzer who, just a year ago, with a third place, conquered the first of his two podiums in the cup: obviously the blue is aiming for an encore.
The other good name is that of the veteran Razzoli, back from a ninth and a seventh place, and who is certainly the most regular at the top of the blue team. Moreover, the Emilian also has a special relationship with Zagreb, where he was third in 2009 and won in 2010 in front of the other blue Moelgg, who in turn won in 2017.
If the precedents mean something, a podium could therefore come out tomorrow, despite the presence of rivals of considerable value such as the French Clement Noel, the Austrians Marco Schwarz and Manuel Feller and the Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen.
Meanwhile, FIS has announced that Wengen will be the venue for recovering the super-G canceled last week in Bormio. In the Swiss center there will be a super-G, two free practice and a slalom from 13 to 16 January.