Patrick Lang’s Column

19th January 2020 NEWCOMERS DOMINATE FIRST WOMEN PARALLEL AT .

A numerous and happy crowd enjoyed another day of exciting ski racing at Sestriere this Sunday in occasion of the maiden giant slalom parallel race organized on the final part of the sunbathed G. Agnelli course. After a series of intense one-to-one battles France’s Clara Direz prevailed in the last final beating little-known Austrian Elisa Moerzinger while was 3rd after beating her teammate , one of the two winners in Saturday’s race.

After a round of qualification hold in the early morning, 32 competitors fought for points and honor on the short course which turned out to be tougher than expected for some of the favorites as Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova or USA’s , both on the podium in Saturday’s giant slalom race. They of them didn’t survive the first rounds allowing ’s giant slalom team to celebrate another nice result with three of them ending among the top-5 as came in 5th.

Clara Direz, who celebrated her first top-10 finish last month at Lienz, eliminated Shiffrin in the 2nd round while Vlhova lost in her first round by 0,05 seconds to Switzerland Aline Danioth who unfortunately suffered a bad crash in her following round. from also fell in the first round of 32 as well as ’s .

The 25-year-old French racer, who has been racing since seven years on the World Cup tour, was able to score points in three different giant slalom races this season including on Saturday when she was 13th here.

“I had some encouraging results this season so I felt pretty confident today even though I had no point of reference in that new specialty. I just fought as hard as possible in each run,” Direz explained afterwards. “I had some luck as I often skied on the blue course which seemed to be a little faster today. It’s of course a special day for me, to win my first World Cup race means a lot to me. I’ll also give me much confidence for the upcoming races I will enter in the next weeks.”

Interestingly enough, Direz is not the first French woman to have excelled in that kind of dual race as Leila Piccard, the sister of the 1988 Super-G Olympic Champion Franck Piccard, also won a similar World Cup competition organized in October 1997 on the Grande Motte glacier above Tignes. She is the first French woman to climb at the top of a World Cup podium this season. In October, her teammate , a former winner here in giant slalom four years ago, was 3rd at Soelden. She didn’t compete in Sestriere as she had to undergo surgery a few weeks ago.

It was also an exciting day for both Elisa Moerzinger and Marta Bassino as the Austrian reached her first World Cup podium in her only fifth major race while the Italian strongly wished to please her numerous supporters present at Sestriere after failing to reach the podium in Saturday.

“I have a hard time to realize what’s happening to me, I am so happy, I never expected something like this in my first World Cup season,” Elisa told the press after the race.

“I am happy for my fans after my disappointing performance from Saturday, it’s good for my moral and my confidence to have achieve that strong performance today,” explained Bassino, who lives in the Piedmont region.

After that second parallel race of the season, Petra Vlhova, the winner at St. Moritz last month, retained the lead in the specialty standings ahead of Direz and Brignone. A last competition in that specialty is scheduled in March at Are, in .

Next week the women’s tour in moving to , in Bulgaria, where three speed races are scheduled from Friday to Sunday. All the top leaders from the overall standings will fly to Bulgaria, including Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova as well as Federica Brignone.