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February 11, 2017

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Holdener leads Swiss 1-2 in combined but Gut out

ON a bitter-sweet day for the home team at the world championships, Wendy Holdener led a 1-2 finish for Switzerland in the combined event but Lara Gut will miss the rest of the championships after tearing the ACL in her left knee in a race warmup.

Lindsey Vonn was fifth after a gutsy slalom run left her 0.47 seconds from a medal. The American had been only sixth fastest in the opening downhill.

“No regrets,” said Vonn, the best-placed speed specialist in a race favoring slalom experts. “My downhill run was really solid. I really tried hard. I’m really proud of my performance.”

Holdener, a slalom specialist, was 0.05 ahead of teammate Michelle Gisin, who took silver. Michaela Kirschgasser of Austria trailed Holdener by 0.38, and repeated her combined bronze from the 2015 worlds.

The finish gave skiing-crazed Switzerland its first women’s world title since 2001.

Gut crashed while practicing for a slalom run in the combined, where she was favored to finish with a medal after placing third in the opening downhill portion. The 25-year-old overall World Cup champion was airlifted from the course and taken to a hospital in St Moritz.

Gut, who won bronze in the super-G on Tuesday, tore the ligament and bruised her meniscus, but has not yet undergone surgery, the Swiss team said in a statement. A team official later said that her season is over, too.

The slalom run, raced through falling snow, flipped the standings from the downhill, which began three hours earlier.

First-run leader Sofia Goggia of Italy and second-place Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia failed to complete the slalom. Stuhec quickly went out after just a few gates.

Slalom racers were favored by a decision to shorten the downhill course because of poor weather forecast for higher sections of the slope.

“I think then the slalom race should be shortened as well because it’s too big of a disadvantage,” Vonn said. “The first four girls are all slalom skiers.”

Holdener, who is third in the World Cup slalom standings behind Mikaela Shiffrin, was 0.94 off the lead in downhill.

The fact that Vonn was only 0.09 faster in the downhill was a surprise, and the American’s morning run came back to cost her. Vonn gestured to the finish-area crowd after both runs by holding out her arms as if she could do little more.

Vonn has never won a major championship medal in combined in six starts at the worlds and three Olympics.

However, she completed the event yesterday for the first time since the 2005 worlds.

Gisin was watched by her older sister Dominique, who took gold in the 2014 Olympic downhill in a tie with Tina Maze of Slovenia.

Shiffrin leads the overall World Cup standings, ahead of defending champion Gut. The 21-year-old American is now heavily favored to collect her first giant crystal trophy next month at the final races in Aspen, Colorado.




 

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