Viktoria Rebensburg won her second consecutive giant slalom race at the International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup as overall challengers Lindsey Vonn and Lara Gut both failed to finish in Maribor.
The 26-year-old German, the Olympic champion in the discipline at Vancouver 2010, was timed at 2 min 29.82 sec after her two runs to back-up her victory in Flachau in Austria on January 17.
Slovenian Ana Drev was 0.32 back in second on her home course while Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather was 0.34 behind the winner in third.
Rebensburg’s win was her tenth in World Cup giant slalom, which means she has levelled the German record held by Martina Ertl-Renz.
Her victory came after a mistake nearly saw her miss a gate on the opening run, an incident she was able to recover from.
Austrian Eva-Maria Brem was quickest down after the first run but had to settle for fourth overall after a second descent which was nearly five seconds slower.
Overall World Cup leader Vonn has 900 points at the top after the American skied out, ahead of Gut who has 855 after suffering the same fate.
Differing weather conditions hindered the two pace-setters on the Slovenian course, as later starters suffered on a softer, weaker surface.
Rebensburg now has 680 points in third position.
Meanwhile, Aleksander Kilde won his first World Cup race of the season in the men’s downhill in Garmisch in Germany.
The Norwegian was timed at 1:55.28 which was 0.22 quicker than Slovenia’s Boštjan Kline and 0.24 faster than Swiss skier Beat Feuz.
Overall downhill leader Aksel Lund Svindal, another Norwegian, was not in action with slalom specialist Marcel Hirscher maintaining his overall World Cup lead with 969 points.
A giant slalom race will take place in Garmisch tomorrow (January 31) while the women have a slalom race in Maribor.
- By Dan Palmer
- This article was republished with permission from the original publisher, www.insidethegames.biz