It’s hard to think otherwise: the Kranjska Gora slope in Slovenia seems to be skier Valérie Grenier’s playground par excellence! Almost a year after obtaining her first career victory there, the Franco-Ontarian repeated the same feat by collecting her second World Cup gold medal in the giant slalom contested on this same track on Saturday.
“I’m really happy and proud. It just feels so good […] I don’t know why this track suits me so well, but it seems to be the last wall which is the place where I ski the fastest”, mentioned Valérie Grenier at the outset game during his interview with Sportcom.
“This is where I won last year. The year before, I finished fourth, she continued. It’s a track that seems to be good for me, but it adds extra stress because you wonder if you’ll be able to do it again. »
The skier initially placed fourth during her first run of the day with a time of 56.90 s. “In my head I had made several mistakes, but in reality it was just a big mistake that still cost me dearly. So it frustrated me at the time,” she confided, referring to her first visit.
“In the end, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I was still just fourth after the first skier. It was encouraging to see that despite my mistake, I had skied fast and was still able to be three tenths of a second behind first. “, said Grenier.
Despite weather conditions that slightly soaked the skiers on Saturday, Valérie Grenier managed to stay focused to steal the show in the second run! “We were in the heavy rain. We were completely wet, but otherwise the snow was beautiful. We were still lucky, despite the weather,” she revealed.
Twenty-seventh on the start list for the second round, the Franco-Ontarian exuded confidence as soon as her skis touched the snow and her technique allowed her to finish with a time of 53.61 s and a cumulative 1:50.51.
Behind Grenier, Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami (0.37 seconds) and Italy’s Frederica Brignone (0.51 seconds) completed the podium in this sixth World Cup of the season.
The Slovakian Petra Vlhova, provisional leader after the first descent, came close to the top 3 with a slight delay of 10 hundredths of a second over Brignone, queen of the last Mont-Tremblant World Cup.
For her part, Sarah Bennett, who was also there in Slovenia, was unable to qualify for the second round. His time of 1:00.72 gave him 49th place.
