Slalom, Women

The fifth and final women’s Alpine skiing event was held on Friday, 21 February, and took place as scheduled on a separate slalom slope within the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center. The first run started in late afternoon and the second run was held as a night-race under floodlights. The current slalom World Cup season saw Mikaela Shiffrin winning three races in Levi, Bormio, and Flachau, while Marlies Schild won in Courchevel and Lienz, and Frida Hansdotter topped the result in the last race before the Olympics in Kranjska Gora. This brought Shiffrin in the lead of the standings followed by Hansdotter, Marlies Schild, and Marie-Michèle Gagnon. Marlies Schild was the 2011 World champion and also won the slalom World Cup in 2010/11 and 2011/12 with Shiffrin as reigning 2013 World chamipon and 2012/13 slalom World Cup winner. With her 35th career win in Lienz, Marlies Schild also overtook Vreni Schneider in the list of all-time slalom World Cup wins. So all was focused on a generational duel between the young 18-year-old superstar Mikaela Shiffrin and 32-year-old grand dame Marlies Schild.

In the opening run the early skiers would post the fastest times. Going first, the pace was set by Bernadette Schild (AUT) with a time of 53.41. This didn’t last long as Super Combined champion and Vancouver slalom gold medalist Maria Höfl-Riesch (GER) overtook this with 53.11. Two skiers later Tina Maze (SLO), Giant Slalom champion, set a time of 53.29 to challenge the leaders. But easily the fastest was Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) who skied the course in 52.62 to take a lead of almost half a second into the second run. Coming next with bib number 7 was Marlies Schild, but she lost more than 1.3 seconds and finished the first run only in sixth position.

With the top 30 going in reverse order in the second run, Frida Hansdotter (SWE) had the fourth fastest time down the course to finish with a combined time of 1:45.90. Next down the course was Kathrin Zettel, seventh after the first run but powering to the second fastest time on the second run to take the lead with 1:45.35. Sixth after the first run, Marlies Schild (AUT) then set the new target time of 1:45.07, having posted the fastest time on the second run with 51.11. Maze then had a poor second run to finish in 1:46.25, ultimately placing eighth. As the course deteriorated Höfl-Riesch was relatively slow and her combined time of 1:45.73 finish fourth. Going last, Shiffrin, despite a mistake on the course, when she almost fell backwards and had to recover, held her nerve with the sixth fastest time of the run, winning gold over the two Austrians by a margin of 0.53 seconds.

Shiffrin became the youngest ever Olympic slalom champion and her idol Marlies Schild became the first women to win a third medal in the same Alpine skiing event after silver in Vancouver and bronze in Torino. Skiing manufacturer Atomic, who did not win a single medal before this event, made a clean sweep of the podium.