Flachau slalom show

Ladies floodlit slalom in Flachau from 5.45pm LIVE

Katharina Liensberger

(Bild: Associated Press)

Nothing again, former World Champion Katharina Liensberger's winless streak continues - despite leading at the halfway point, the Vorarlberg native didn't carve her way to her first triumph since the Åre Slalom on March 12, 2022 at the red-white-red floodlit home race in Flachau!

Liensberger, who was still comfortably in the lead after the first run, slipped behind Switzerland's Camille Rast and Wendy Holdener and Sweden's Sara Hector in the final in front of 12,000 fans. Top favorite Zrinka Ljutić only finished in 34th place after a botched first run.

"Couldn't really get into the rhythm!"
With her drop back to 4th place (25th run time!), Austria's figurehead in the women's slalom not only missed out on her personal fourth World Cup victory, but also the first success for red-white-red in the Flachau slalom since Marlies Raich 14 (!) years ago. Liensberger was second in Flachau in 2021 and third in 2019. In the current season, the Olympic silver medallist has finished on the podium in both slaloms in Levi and Semmering.

Here is the final result:

(Bild: live.fis-ski.com)

"It's a shame because I know that would suit me. I was really lucky before the first hairpin and just managed to save myself. Unfortunately, it was very faulty, I couldn't really get into the rhythm. Too bad, I'll just attack again in the next race. The first run was very good, I'll take that with me," said Liensberger to ORF.

Head coach saw "heavy feet"
"Of course it's incredibly difficult to get it down in front of so many people - and everything is set," said ÖSV head coach Roland Assinger. Liensberger did not find his way into the second run right from the start. "It was just heavy feet. But that's the sport. It's no walk in the park, Rast and Holdener handled the slope conditions very well."

"I'm enjoying it, it's much better than I thought!"
Winner Rast skied from eighth intermediate place to first place, taking over the slalom and overall World Cup leader's jersey. "I'm enjoying it, it's much better than I thought," said the Swiss racer after her second win of the season; she had also won ahead of Holdener in Killington. As the new "Snow Space Salzburg Princess", Rast scooped the record prize money of 63,300 euros in the Women's World Cup.

Here is the standings in the overall World Cup:

In the absence of the injured top stars Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova, favorite Ljutic came away empty-handed after a big mistake in the upper part of the first run. The young Croatian had won the two most recent slaloms in Semmering and Kranjska Gora.

"The certain looseness is missing!"
But Liensberger's team colleagues also looked through their fingers in Salzburg's Pongau region, with the exception of Katharina Huber, who finished in 15th place (+2.00) ("I lack a certain looseness"). Katharina Truppe was eliminated, all other ÖSV skiers were too slow to make it into the final of the top 30. "Team-wise, we can certainly do more than what we have in black and white. We'll keep working hard so that we can strike again in the next races," said Huber.