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. The Slovakian fans went crazy as soon as Petra crossed the finish line and has been crowned Snow Space Princess for the second in a row with her 12th World Cup victory.
"I knew after the first run that Mike Day (Shiffrin’s coach) will set a second course that I don’t like because I don’t like this kind of course that have a lot of turning", Vlhova said after the race. "And they know that I find it more difficult. But I tried to fight with this course anyway, and I did it. So it was a really tough day for me. The first run I did very well, and second run was difficult because I did lot of mistakes and at the end, I won".
Anna Swenn-Larsson would have been dreaming of becoming the first woman other than Vlhova and Shiffrin to win a slalom in 25 races after seeing the latter fail to beat her time even clocking the fastest time of the second run.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who was second after the opening run, came 0.43 behind in third and she is still leading Vlhova in the overall World Cup standings by 273 points and the slalom standings by 80 points.
The floodlit race in Austria with 14,800 spectators had the highest prize fund on the women's World Cup this season, with Vlhova receiving 70,000 euros for the win.
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