Michelle Gisin reaches the podium in the slalom race in Linz

Michelle Gisin reaches the podium in the slalom in Linz, as she did in 2019 and 2021. She finished third behind the outstanding Mikaela Shiffrin and Germany's Lena Dürr.

Michelle Gissen takes a bow at the finish line in Linz. In front of Mikaela Shiffrin, but also a little bit in front of herself. While the best female skier in history has just crossed the finish line and the number 2.34 emerges from the bright green on the scoreboard, Giesen is celebrating her third podium finish in Linz. . She has already finished third on the podium in 2019 and 2021 in East Tyrol, where the races are held every two years. Now I repeated this inversion.

“You can say this is my favorite slope now,” Giesen said in an interview with SRF after the race. When asked about the secret of her success in Schlossberg, she replied: “I don’t know how it can be achieved.” By that I meant above all the realization that things go much better on short skis since I put them into the corner a little and focused on the speed systems.

For Gisin, it was a 20th podium finish in the World Cup and an eighth place in the slalom. After sixth places at Killington and Courchevel, Schlossberg's exploits followed. She still finished in fourth place in the first round, but worked her way up one place in the second round. The Engelberg resident also benefited from the absence of Paula Moltzan. The American was eliminated on his way to the podium.

In Levi, she was still behind her own expectations with finishes of 21st and 15th, but she did impress with sixth-place finishes in the slalom races in Killington and Courchevel. Now, with third place in Linz, followed a coup for which Giessen had waited in vain for the entirety of last season. “Definitely, the expectations are lower because I train less for slalom,” she said. She was still very nervous before the second round. “The course setting suits me. After the above error, I knew: now it will be tight. All the better that it worked.

Jessen capped off a strong performance for the Swiss national team. Nicole Goode finished ninth with a start number of 30, which was her best World Cup result. The 25-year-old had never managed to break into the top 10 before, and Melanie Millard and Camille Rast were unable to build on their performances from the morning in the second round and fell four and nine places respectively. They ranked 15th and 27th.

Unleash Mikaela Shiffrin

Mikaela Shiffrin was in a league of her own. The 28-year-old American confirmed her outstanding level and outperformed the competition by 2.34 seconds or more. After the first round she was already leading by more than a second. Unlike the day before, when her cushion continually melted in the second run, she took another step forward in the slalom. For Shiffrin, it was the 93rd World Cup win of her career, 56th in the slalom and the fifth of the season.

Lena completed the podium round. The 32-year-old German rehabilitated herself from the failure in Courchevel and rose from fifth to second place in the second race. This was her third podium this winter. (Abu/Sda)