Alpine skiing: Tessa Worley wins the Lienz giant slalom – archyde

It is the fifteenth victory of his career. The French Tessa Worley won the World Cup giant of Lienz (Austria) on Tuesday, December 28, ahead of the Slovakian Petra Vlhova and the Swedish Sara Hector.

A little over a month before the Beijing Olympic Games, which will be held from February 4 to 20, the skier from Grand-Bornand clinched her first victory of the season, in the absence of two of the top names in the discipline, American Mikaela Shiffrin and Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami, positive for the coronavirus.

On the side of the other tricolors, Coralie Frasse Sombet takes a nice 13^e place and young Clara Direz ranks 20^e.

Third most successful giantist in history

Best time of the first round, the Frenchwoman was able to overcome the pitfalls of the second route (4^e time), disputed between light and shadow, to keep thirty hundredths of a second ahead of Vlhova and thirty-eight hundredths of Hector.

Eighth to Sölden (Austria) end of October, 5^e then 4^e In Courchevel last week, Bornandine is gaining momentum this season as a giant and has made its science of the discipline speak to win its first race from Kronplatz (Italy), in January. “I’m super happy with this race, I managed to do two strong heats. In Courchevel, I felt that my ski was there but I had not managed to achieve a podium. I hope to continue in 2022 “, she said.

Double world champion in the specialty, Tessa Worley is in great shape before competing in a priori in a little over a month for her third Olympic Games, she who did not win a medal in her first two participations. “For the Games, I hope to keep this state of mind which allows me to free myself, that’s how I want to approach the competition, to be at the start to play, whether it is to win or to lose at the end., added the French skier. These running situations are good training every time. But I know how hit and miss skiing can be. I just keep getting these good feelings and good emotions. “

With fifteen successes as a World Cup giant, Worley is the third most successful skier in the history of the discipline behind the Swiss Vreni Schneider (20 successes) and the Austrian Annemarie Moser-Pröll (16). “The figures are nice but, above all, I am satisfied to still have this flame, to produce a high-performance ski after many years”, commented Worley.