Every year in mid-January, the best women slalom racers meet for the Night Slalom in the Hermann Maier racecourse in Flachau, and next Tuesday, January 12th, 2021 the spectacle will be back to the Austrian ski town.
Flachau is a village in the district of St. Johann im Pongau in the Austrian state of Salzburg.
Flachau is part of the Ski Amadé ski domain, a network of 28 ski areas and towns that combined, make up the second-largest ski area in Europe. With only one lift pass you can ski on 760 kilometers of slopes served 270 modern lifts, spread out throughout the top five ski regions of Salzburger Sportwelt, Schladming-Dachstein (including the Dachstein Glacier at 2,700 m), Gastein, Hochkönig, and Grossarltal.
Flachau Program:
Slalom. Women. Tuesday, January 12th. 1st run 18:00, 2nd run 20:45 (CET)
In the last Slalom race of the season in Zagreb, Petra Vlhova won for the second year in a row, the "Snow Queen Trophy" in the Sljeme's "Crveni spust" Slalom course.
Petra Vlhová has won 11 women's slalom events in the World Cup, second-most among active skiers behind Shiffrin (43). She has finished on the podium in 16 of the last 19 World Cup slalom events including 3 victories this season.
A consistent Katharina Liensberger finished in second place. Liensberger is the only skier to finish on the podium in all four women's slalom events in the World Cup this season. She has finished also in the top 7 in each of the last 11 women's World Cup slalom races, including a third place in both events in Levi this season and a second place in Semmering and Zagreb.
Michelle Gisin finished third 0.22 sec. behind the winner. Gisin has won her first World Cup event in the Slalom in Semmering this season, after recording nine World Cup podium finishes.
Gisin showed again her brilliant physical shape in Zagreb, where she had previously often shown trouble. In difficult conditions, the 27-year-old belonged to the quartet that set itself apart from the competition in the first run and did not swap places afterward.
Mikaela Shiffrin finished in Zagreb just out of podium range in fourth place (+0.27).
Last season in Flachau Petra Vlhova was crowned Snow Space Salzburg Princess for the second time in a row.
Petra Vlhova built a lead of six-tenths of a second over Mikaela Shiffrin in the opening run, and after charging the second part of the race, she posted a combined time of one minute and 53.65 seconds to edge out Sweden's Anna Swenn-Larsson by only 0.10 sec.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who was second after the opening run, came 0.43 behind in third.
In 2019, under the lights in Flachau Petra Vlhova overcame a 0.31-second deficit after the first run and skied the fastest second run to claim her first Audi FIS Ski World Cup Slalom victory since January of 2018.
Vlhova finished with only a 0.15-second lead over Shiffrin.
It was the first time in the 2018-2019 season, Slovakian Petra Vlhova successfully bested Mikaela Shiffrin in a slalom race. Vlhova had finished in second behind Shiffrin in all five slalom events since Levi 2018.
Katharina Liensberger was third for her career-first podium on the World Cup tour.
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