Slalom, Women

The women’s Alpine skiing events ended with the slalom. The dominate skiers in the 2009-10 season were Maria Riesch who won in Levi, Šárka Záhrobská who won in Aspen, Sandrine Aubert who won in Åre and Zagreb, Marlies Schild who won in Lienz and Flachau, and Kathrin Zettel who won the final World Cup race about one month prior to the Olympics in Maribor. The Slalom World Cup standings after seven of eight races saw Riesch (winner of the 2008-09 Slalom World Cup) in the lead followed by Zettel, Aubert, and Schild (winner of the Slalom World Cup in 2006-07 and 2007-08). Schild had recovered right before this season after missing the 2008-09 season due to a complex fracture of her left lower leg after a fall in a training run on 9 October 2008. Riesch was also the reigning 2009 world champion as she won gold at Val d’Isère, while Záhrobská took silver and Tanja Poutiainen finished third. At the 2007 World Championship in Åre Záhrobská won gold in front of Schild (silver) and Anja Pärson (bronze). Pärson (gold) and Schild (bronze) had also medaled at Torino in the slalom, leaving absent only the 2006 silver medalist Nicole Hosp, who had sustained an ACL tear in her right knee on 24 October 2009 after a fall in the first race (giant slalom) of the season in Sölden.

As with a number of the other alpine skiing events, this too was held in poor weather conditions, fog being the main culprit. However the race went ahead on schedule and, after the first run, super combined gold medalist Riesch had the fastest time of 50.75 seconds, followed by slalom specialists Záhrobská, 0.40 seconds behind, and Schild another 0.25 seconds back. Elisabeth Görgl, with the 22nd fastest time of the first run, took the early lead in the second run with a combined time of 1:44.97, which would eventually be good enough for 7th place, and her time was not bettered until Aubert, 7th fastest in the first run. The medals would eventually be decided among the three leaders after the first run. Schild, first off of the three leaders, set the combined target time of 1:43.32. Záhrobská, skiing with a degree of caution, let slip her first run advantage to finish in 1:43.90, behind Schild. With the pressure on, and having seen her sister Susanne straddle a gate when threatening to set a fast time, Maria Riesch skied a controlled second run to finish in a combined time of 1:42.89 and win her second gold medal of the Games. This made Riesch the most successful Alpine skier at Vancouver, making her the only participant to win two gold medals. She used Head skis to win the race as did Záhrobská to win bronze. Schild used Atomic for her silver medal, while Maria Pietilä-Holmner trusted Rossignol to place fourth.