The ski weekend at a glance: who was surprised, the Swiss horror album, where the TV broke down

Old? Not good! The Italian Federica Brignone wins both giant slaloms in Mont-Tremblant (Ka). At 33 years, 4 months and 19 days, she replaces Anita Wachter (56, Austria) as the oldest giant slalom winner at the World Cup. The next day she flies through a snowstorm and twice as fast. “I trained in this weather for a month, with almost no visibility. “It paid off,” Brignone said. In the gigantic World Cup she is only five points behind Lara Gut-Behrami (32).

Had this problem about three years ago Clara Direz (28, Fr) a double pulmonary embolism. Why? It was a mystery. The Frenchwoman missed the entire winter, but did not give up. Two weak seasons followed, in which she only scored 39 World Cup points. But now Direz has turned things around and achieved her first two top 10 finishes in the World Cup on the same weekend. First she came tenth, then fourth on Sunday. There’s probably no one who wouldn’t begrudge her that.

The gigantic Swiss team – with the exception of Gut-Behrami. While six riders made it to the second race at the season opener in Sölden, there were only three on Saturday and only two on Sunday. Last wash Michelle Gisin (29) in 23rd place, the only Swiss ski athlete behind Gut-Behrami to score points. A shockingly weak balance sheet!

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Gut-Behrami was angry after second place because of the bad weather

First of all, Petrus, who did not allow any races in Beaver Creek (USA) and also caused a snowstorm in the second race of the women on Sunday. Secondly, the race jury in Mont-Tremblant, who came through the race despite irregular and unfair conditions. Gut-Behrami said: “I was about to quit. It’s ridiculous to drive such a race.” Also the otherwise calm Slovak Petra Vlhova (28) found clear words: “The visibility was almost zero, it was dangerous. If such conditions had existed before the first run, we probably wouldn’t have started.” And thirdly, the lack of flexibility on the part of TV channels to sometimes move a race forward a day if the weather forecast is bad afterwards. Then the Ski enthusiasts certainly saw a speed spectacle in Beaver Creek on Thursday.

Twice she is the youngest in the rankings, twice she can be happy: the Croatian Zrinka Ljutic (19) makes it clear with numbers 14 and 7 that she could soon belong to the world elite in the giant slalom. The slalom specialist, who loves hard rock in her spare time (“Rage Against The Machine”, “Foo Fighters”), has never been better at this discipline.

It didn’t happen on the weekend, but in the days before. But he went through the wringer. During the second training in Beaver Creek, Canadian Broderick Thompson (29) fell so hard during compression after the “Golden Eagle” that he had to fear for his life. Because doctors suspected a blood clot in the brain, they put him in an induced coma. On Friday evening everything was clear: Thompson broke several ribs, vertebrae and shoulder blades, but he was back on track. Austrian head coach Marko Pfeifer told Blick: “Broderick’s fall is one of the worst things I have ever seen!”