Petra VLHOVA

Slovaquie

Ski Alpin

Médailles olympiques

Participations3

Première participationSotchi 2014

Année de naissance1995

Réseaux sociaux

Biographie

Having battled for slalom supremacy with Mikaela Shiffrin in recent years, Petra Vlhova made her first trip to the Olympic podium a winning one at Beijing 2022.

The Slovakian skier gave notice of her talent when she won gold at the Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games.

She later reflected, "That was a competition that gave me a lot of experience. When I won gold in slalom, that was when my career, everything started."

Vlhova made her full Olympic debut at Sochi 2014 aged 18, finishing 24th in the giant slalom and 19th in the slalom. A week later, she took the junior slalom world title on home snow in Jasna.

Born exactly three months after Shiffin, Vlhova did not enjoy the same success as her American contemporary early in her career.

And it was not until the 2015/16 season that the tall Slovak started to make her presence felt at the highest. Her first World Cup top-10 finish, a seventh place in the Aspen (USA) slalom, came at the end of November 2015. And two weeks later came her first win at Are (SWE).

Even then, she was unable to sustain her form with her next World Cup triumph coming at Aspen in March 2017.

Weeks before that, she helped five-time World Cup race winner Veronika Velez-Zuzulova achieve the only global medal of her career as Slovakia took mixed team silver at the 2017 World Championships in St. Moritz (SUI).

Two wins followed in the 2017/18 season but consistency again proved elusive. She skied all six events at her second Olympic Winter Games, at PyeongChang 2018, achieving a best finish of fifth in the combined.

Despite coming from a country with a small ski association, Vlhova has managed to build a strong support team around her.

Her head coach is Italian Livio Magoni who also previously mentored Slovenian great Tina Maze.

And her efforts bore fruit in the 2018/19 season with five slalom second places to start the campaign, all behind Shiffrin, before beating the double Olympic champion in Flachau (AUT).

Then came her first World Cup giant slalom triumph at Maribor (SLO) before the 2019 World Championships at Are (SWE).

It was a fortnight to remember for Vlhova as she took silver in the combined behind Wendy Holdener for Slovakia's first individual medal at the Worlds.

Then came the giant slalom where two fine runs saw her take gold ahead of first-run leader Viktoria Rebensburg and Super-G champion Shiffrin.

The American exacted revenge in the slalom with Sweden's Anna Swenn-Larsson taking silver and Vlhova the bronze.

The 2019/20 season saw the Vlhova-Shiffrin rivalry move to a new level.

Shiffrin enjoyed the better of their meetings although the turn of the year saw Vlhova gain the upper hand with slalom wins at Zagreb (CRO) and Flachau, and a shared giant slalom triumph at Sestriere (ITA) with Federica Brignone.

When Shiffrin left the tour following the sudden death of her father that February, Vlhova was able to step up and claim her first slalom crystal globe. In six slalom races that campaign, they won three apiece with the pair finishing one and two on three occasions.

With the overall World Cup title also up for grabs, Vlhova also raced in speed events but had to settle for third place behind Brignone and Shiffrin.

Vlhova kept winning even after Shiffrin's return to action with Katharina Liensberger making it a three-way fight in slalom.

It was the Austrian who took the slalom crystal globe, but Vlhova - who again upped her speed event participation as Shiffrin focused more on technical events - this time managed to claim her first overall World Cup crown.

That ended the season on a high note after a slightly disappointing World Championships at Cortina d'Amprezzo (ITA). A promising ninth in the Super-G was followed by 12th in the giant slalom.

She did get back on track in the combined, taking silver behind Shiffrin, before finishing second to Liensberger in the slalom with four-time defending champion Shiffrin taking bronze.

Then came Olympic year where the big two dominated slalom again as Liensberger struggled to recapture her world title form.

Before Beijing, Vlhova won five World Cup slaloms to Shiffrin's two although her giant slalom results were not nearly as strong with Shiffrin and Sweden's Sara Hector leading the way in that discipline.

Speaking ahead of her third Winter Games, Vlhova explained why she had managed to stay at the top of her sport.

"The reason is I am now 100 per cent mentally balanced," Vlhova said. "That was the only thing missing for me before to become really the best.

"The season until now has been going very well for me, so I am in a very good mental mood and physical shape as well, and fully focused for the Olympic competitions. I feel really strong."

Having finished 14th in the giant slalom, it looked like Vlhova might again come up short at the Olympics as she lay in eighth place after the first run of the slalom.

But she produced a fine forceful second run to go into a lead and, one by one, her rivals tried and failed to beat her aggregate time.

When giant slalom gold medallist Hector straddled a gate with victory seemingly at her mercy, Vlhova was assured of her country's first alpine skiing Olympic medal.

And when Michelle Gisin and first-run Lena Duerr both struggled, it was gold for the 26-year-old Slovak ahead of Liensberger and Wendy Holdener.

Afterwards, Vlhova said, "It's difficult to say what it means to me right now. I have been dreaming all my life to win an Olympics or just to have medals.

"Honestly, it was really difficult to be calm and focused on my skiing but I had a lot of power from my team. They trusted me, they believed in me and they repeated to me, 'You are so strong, just ski free, enjoy and focus on your skiing, nothing else.' They were always repeating this to me in between the two runs.

"I gave everything I had and, at the end, I am Olympic champion."