COURCHEVEL, FRANCE — Marlies Schild dominated her rivals and the treacherous Courchevel course Sunday to win her second straight slalom race of the season, setting her up perfectly for a hat trick bid on home snow this week in Austria.
Schild won by more than a second in Aspen last month, and this time her margin of victory was even greater. She finished 1.87 ahead of Finland’s Tanja Poutiainen and a massive 2.19 clear of Austria’s Kathrin Zettel.
“Not really surprised … I know I can ski slalom very fast,” Schild said. “The second run was more difficult for me, but it worked really good. I like the slope here.”
Schild can make it three out of three in slaloms this season if she wins Tuesday’s race in Flachau.
“Of course my goal is to win the race,” the 30-year-old Schild said. “What makes me so fast? I always try to get a good feel for the race, every slope. I have a lot of experience over the last years, and maybe a good feeling.”
Schild, who also won at Courchevel last year, would have been faster if she hadn’t wobbled halfway down the crumbly Stade Emile Allais course that claimed 18 racers in the first run, including overall World Cup leader Lindsey Vonn.
“Of course Marlies is really strong and a step ahead of us, but we will take up the challenge,” said Poutiainen, who was also second behind Schild at Courchevel last year. “I seem to like this place, it’s a good hill for me. We know it was not easy for organizers to get this race ready.”
Defending World Cup champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany was second in her first run despite jarring her knee but lost her balance and fell in the second.
The second run started in bright, early afternoon sunshine with the temperature at 27 degrees and the snow still chalky and relatively soft.
Canada’s Marie-Michele Gagnon and Austria’s Bernadette Schild stood eighth and ninth, respectively, after the first run, but both had trouble at the same section halfway through their second.
They were not alone.
Slovakia’s Veronika Zuzulova, fourth after the first run, caught the inside of a ski on a gate and went wide and out of contention. The same thing happened to Sweden’s Maria Pietilae-Holmner, who was third after the morning run.
Then it was Hoefl-Riesch’s turn to falter, her body swaying to the left as she mistimed a gate.
But this made little difference to Schild who, despite the cushion of a comfortable lead over Zettel and Poutiainen, still attacked the course aggressively from the outset.
