Alpine skiing-Swiss Gut-Behrami clinches narrow win in giant slalom World Cup opener

SOELDEN, Austria : Switzerland's Lara Gut-Behrami narrowly won the women's giant slalom, edging out Italy's Federica Brignone, while the favourite, U.S. Mikaela Shiffrin, finished sixth at the opening event of the 2022-23 World Cup season in Soelden on Saturday.

The race could hardly have been closer in sunny conditions in the Austrian Alps as Gut-Behrami was only two hundredths of a second faster than Brignone with a total time of two minutes and 18.94 seconds.

Gut-Behrami had a mediocre first run, finishing in fourth place, but she beat the entire field in her second run, when she was 0.75 faster than Brignone.

Petra Vlhova from Slovakia came third in both legs and third overall, 0.14 behind Gut-Behrami.

For Shiffrin, it was not the best day, as she finished 1.40 seconds behind Gut-Behrami, struggling to keep up the pace in the middle parts of the course.