Slalom, Women

The women’s slalom was the second female Alpine skiing event in Beijing. There were two clear favourites for this event with Petra Vlhová and Mikaela Shiffrin. They had won all seven slaloms held in the ongoing World Cup season, with Vlhová winning in Levi (twice), Lienz, Zagreb, and Kranjska Gora, while Shiffrin triumphed in Killington and Schladming. Vlhová also topped the standings with Shiffrin second, followed by Wendy Holdener, Lena Dürr, and Katharina Liensberger.

Since the last Olympics in 2018, Shiffrin had won the Crystal Globe in 2018 and 2019, Vlhová in 2020, and Liensberger in 2021, with the world titles going to Shiffrin in 2019 and Liensberger in 2021. A question mark was left as to who would take gold after Vlhová only finished 14th, and Shiffrin did not finish in the first technical event in Beijing two days earlier, when neither had been at their best. Interestingly, their coaches had been chosen to set the courses with Mike Day in the first run and Mauro Pini in the second run.

The race was opened by bib number 1 Dürr, and it turned out that her performance would be the best on the first run with Gisin only 3/100ths of a second behind. Surprisingly placed third after the first run was giant slalom gold medallist Sara Hector, only 0.11 seconds behind the lead. In fourth was another surprise with Andreja Slokar, followed by Holdener in fifth, with Liensberger and Vlhová in seventh and eighth respectively, both already more than 6/10ths behind Dürr. It was even worse for Shiffrin, as the course setting of her coach was no help and she went out after only about five seconds racing.

In the second run, Vlhová took advantage of the course setting of her coach and stormed with the best run time to take the gold medal. Liensberger going down just after Vlhová set the second-best time to win silver as none of the others from the best six after run one were able to catch them. Holdener took bronze 0.12 behind Vlhová and 0.04 behind Liensberger, but finished 0.07 ahead of midway leader Dürr. As fifth placed Slokar was also only 0.22 behind Vlhová, this was the closest women’s Olympic slalom ever.

This was the first ever medal for Slovakia in an Alpine skiing event. With Vlhová and Liensberger, the manufacturer Rossignol won two medals, while Holdener won bronze for Head, allowing this brand to win a medal in each of the first four races in Beijing. A record number of 51 nations participated in this event, which was the highest number of different countries to do so in a female Olympic Alpine skiing event ever. Finishing 50th and last was Lee Wen-Yi, who became the first ever Olympic Alpine skier for Chinese Taipei.