Slalom vrouwen Zagreb

Marlies Schild crushed the field in Zagreb-Sljeme on Thursday to make it four wins out of five in women’s slalom races so far this season.

The Austrian finished a full 1.66 seconds ahead of home favourite Ana Jelusic, with a superb second run by Sarka Zahrobska seeing her jump up from 14th after the first run into the podium position of third.

Anja Paerson who started the second run in second, was on course for a podium finish before slipping a few gates from the finish.

With the victory Schild cements her lead in both the overall and the slalom World Cup standings.

Schild did the hard work in the first run, when she simply annihilated the field with a fantastic performance that saw her 1.09 ahead of Paerson and 1.40 ahead of Jelusic.

When Paerson fell out of the equation the Austrian looked to be in complete control, as while Jelusic had the lead, she had still only produced the 10th best time of the second run.

However, there were still a few nervy moments from Schild during her second run, as the partisan crowd began to audible cheer for the mistake that would give Jelusic victory, and they were given hope when Schild lost nearly 0.80 of her advantage in the first section of her run after bouncing heavily off a gate.

The Austrian though showed her class by recovering superbly and in the end she actually produced a better second run that Jelusic, the fifth best of all the second runs, to wrap up a comprehensive victory.

Meanwhile, Zahbrokska will be delighted with her third place finish - she had the best time in the second run by an impressive 0.63 second margin and remained in first all the way until Jelusic claimed the lead three skiers from the end.

Paerson was producing some great skiing despite just coming back from a knee injury, but again she had to endure the taunts and boos from the crowd during her second run, and although she was well ahead of Jelusic in the splits, the intimidating atmosphere seemed to get to her as she slipped near the end.

In fact, it was a disastrous second run for the Swedes, as Therese Borsessen who started from fifth straddled a gate, and Maria Pietilae dropped all the way from sixth to 21st.

Italy's Chiara Costazza (fourth) and American Remi Stiegler (fifth) made up the Top five.

High flyers in the slalom charts Nicole Hosp and Kathrin Zettel finished 11th and 12th respectively.

Bron : eurosport.com