Sara Hector takes second win of season with impressive giant slalom win at Kranjska Gora

Sweden's Sara Hector was unstoppable in Kranjska Gora on Saturday (8 January), winning her second FIS Alpine Ski World Cup race of the season to overtake American Mikaela Shiffrin at the top of the giant slalom World Cup standings.

Leading from the first run on a calm and sunny but cold day in Slovenia, the Swede – who was also victorious just before Christmas in the second giant slalom at Courchevel – produced a blistering second run to take victory by nearly a second.

On an icy Podkoren 3 piste, Hector, who led France's Tessa Worley by 0.08 seconds heading into the second attempt, pushed hard out of the gate to open up her advantage to more than six-tenths of a second at the first sector.

She added more time with the fastest third sector of all skiers in the second run, crossing the finish line in a combined 2 minutes 15.79 seconds, 0.96 seconds ahead of second-placed Worley.

"It's unbelievable. I felt really good on the middle, but you never know. I'm just in shock, it's so awesome," a clearly thrilled Hector told FIS TV after the race.

Of her good giant slalom form – her four races this season have seen her record four podiums including the two wins – she added: "It's just all of a sudden worked so good, we've been working hard for a long time."

The win puts Hector on 362 points in the giant slalom crystal globe race, leading Shiffrin by 46 points.

Shiffrin could only manage a seventh-place finish after a slow first run put her down in 14th, nearly a second and a half behind Hector.

The American still appeared race-rusty, coming off the back of a recent Covid infection which saw her miss a number of World Cup races, although she did move into provisional third place after her second run behind Lara Gut-Behrami and Maryna Gasienica-Daniel before Valerie Grenier and the final three runners – Marta Bassino, Worley, and Hector – each overtook them.

France's Worley will take confidence from her runs today into the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 next month.

After losing time to Bassino in the first sector of her second trip down the mountain, the Frenchwoman was strong through the flatter middle section to regain the advantage which she held to the end of the course before being ultimately overtaken by Hector.

Bassino, meanwhile, will be relieved to have finished on the podium.

The Italian began her second run some 0.77 seconds ahead of Grenier, the surprise leader from Canada, but was not the cleanest on her descent, losing time all the way down and only barely scraping home by 0.07 seconds to finish on the podium and in turn deny Grenier what would have been her first World Cup top-three finish.

Gut-Behrami, the reigning world champion in giant slalom, was fifth; the 2019 world champion Petra Vlhova of Slovakia had a race to forget, finishing in 15th.