Camille Rast has crowned herself the new slalom world champion, earning Switzerland its fourth gold medal in Saalbach-Hinterglemm. Her compatriot Wendy Holdener celebrated behind her (+0.46 sec), while the bronze medal was claimed by the Vorarlberg native Katharina Liensberger (+1.32 sec) in front of 16,700 spectators. US superstar Mikaela Shiffrin finished fifth and went home empty-handed, while Katharina Truppe landed in seventh place.

Rast is the first Swiss slalom world champion since Vreni Schneider in 1991, also in Saalbach. Since then, there have only been two medals, one of which Holdener won with silver in 2017 in St. Moritz.

Seventh Medal Thanks to Liensberger

For Austria, it was the seventh medal at the home World Championships, with previous golds for Stephanie Venier (Super-G) and Raphael Haaser (giant slalom), as well as silver medals by Haaser (Super-G), Mirjam Puchner (downhill), and Vincent Kriechmayr (downhill), and bronze by Stephanie Venier/Katharina Truppe (team combination).

Katharina Huber fell from 13th place at halftime to 14th. "I am generally a bit of a thinker and maybe overthink a bit too much instead of just going for it," said Huber. Katharina Gallhuber was eliminated in the first run. "It's very bitter when you are eliminated in the first run of the coolest race you can experience in an athlete's career," said the 27-year-old.

Numerous Dropouts

Austria's technical coach Klaus Mayrhofer came up with something special for the first ten gates. He set the combination "hairpin, hairpin, long turn, hairpin," and the section, along with several others, proved to be an insurmountable challenge for many in the fast-paced first run. Only 45 out of 116 reached the finish line. The second run also brought a flood of dropouts.

(APA/Red)

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