Wendy Holdener takes Sestriere slalom ahead of Mikaela Shiffrin for second straight World Cup win
The Swiss skier has done it again winning back-to-back World Cup slaloms to move into second in the overall standings behind Mikaela Shiffrin.
Alpine Skiing
Wendy Holdener is on fire.
Two weeks after sharing victory at the Killington World Cup slalom with Sweden's Anna Swenn Larsson, the Swiss alpine ski racer won her second straight slalom on Sunday (11 December) in Sestriere - this time she was alone on top of the podium.
Holdener, second after the first run behind Slovakia's Petra Vlhová, delivered a fast run second in perfect conditions to win with a combined time of 1:56.29.
The second run was set by Mikaela Shiffrin's coach Mike Day but the two-time Olympic champion cound not take advantage of it and had to settle for second place, 0.47 seconds behind Holdener
Vlhova made a couple of costly errors and ended up in third (1:56.99). The Olympic slalom champion is stil waiting for her first win of the new season.
The story of the day however was Sweden's Hanna Aronsson Elfman.
The 19-year old, former Youth Olympian, only 16th after run one, put down a sensational second run to move up all the way to fourth place.
"It is unbelievable. I heard at the start that Mikaela was in the lead and then to finish with such a lead is so amazing," said Holdener to Eurosport. "The back-to-back wins is really nice."
Double Olympic champion Shiffrin who was hoping to claim the 77th World Cup win of her career remains at the top of the overall World Cup rankings. The American has 385 points, only 19 points more than Holdener. Vlhova is 45 points behind in third.
Shiffrin still sits third on the all-time list with 76 World Cup race wins, behind icons Ingemar Stenmark (86) and Lindsey Vonn (82).