SEMMERING, Austria (AP) — Swiss skier Lara Gut-Behrami edged Mikaela Shiffrin in the first run of a women’s World Cup giant slalom Wednesday, as the pair built a big lead over the rest of the field.
Gut-Behrami looked flawless on the icy Panorama course and was 0.22 seconds faster than the American, while the rest were more than eight-tenths off the pace.
Shiffrin won Tuesday’s GS at the same venue for her 78th career World Cup win, leaving her four short of the women’s record held by Lindsey Vonn.
With the gates set in an uncharacteristically straight line, Gut-Behrami and Shiffrin completed the course in less than a minute, about five seconds faster than Tuesday.
Shiffrin led Gut-Behrami’s time throughout her run but could not match the Swiss skier’s pace at the flat bottom section.
“It’s quite a straight course, a really fast course, and it has some bumps in it,” Shiffrin said. “It’s kind of hard to ski something with so little turn, and I’m really happy that I was able to do it that well.”
Marta Bassino, who leads the GS standings, was 0.81 behind in third, followed by Italian teammate Federica Brignone and Olympic champion Sara Hector of Sweden in joint fourth position, just over a second behind.
Gut-Behrami won the season-opening GS in November for her first World Cup win in the discipline in more than six years. However, the 2016 overall champion won the GS world title in Italy in 2021 and Olympic bronze in Beijing in February.
The Swiss skier earned her first career World Cup podium aged 17 in Semmering in 2008.
The race is the second in a three-day series at the resort near the capital Vienna and will be concluded with a night slalom Thursday.
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