Super Slovak Vlhova swooshes to historic gold as Shiffrin's struggles continue

Petra Vlhova realized a lifelong dream and ended Slovakia's wait for an Olympic Alpine skiing medal with victory in Wednesday's women's slalom at Beijing 2022.

A flawless second run on the challenging Ice River course in Yanqing earned gold for Vlhova, as Austria's reigning world champion Katharina Liensberger took silver, and Switzerland's Wendy Holdener claimed bronze.

Pre-race favorite Mikaela Shiffrin's miserable Olympics continued as she skidded out of contention with a botched first run.

But the day belonged to Vlhova, who despite owning six medals from world championships, had never gotten her hands on any of the Olympic variety.

"I gave everything I had and at the end I am Olympic champion," said the 26-year-old. "It's difficult to say what it means to me right now. I have been dreaming all my life to win an Olympics or just to have medals.

"I have a lot of emotions right now, inside of me. This season I was really strong and today I gave everything."

Vlhova made her Olympic debut at Sochi 2014, with her best result at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games a fifth-place finish in Alpine combined.

Her victory in Beijing, though, has been coming. Last year, she won the 2021 World Cup overall title, and she leads this season's standings after seven of nine events.

Vlhova has allied her speed with admirable determination. A facial injury sustained in early 2021 couldn't keep her off the slopes for long, and she was back racing in late February.

She showed similar fighting spirit at the National Alpine Skiing Centre on Wednesday, recovering from a mediocre first run that left her eighth to power to the top of the standings with her nerveless second effort.

"Honestly, it was really difficult to be calm and focused on my skiing. But I had a lot of power from my team. They trusted me, they believed in me and they repeated to me, 'you are so strong, just ski free, enjoy and focus on your skiing, nothing else'. They were always repeating this to me in between the two runs," Vlhova said.

The time gap between the gold and bronze medalists was just 0.12 seconds, with Vlhova winning in 1 min 44.98 sec, 0.08 sec ahead of Liensberger (1:45.06), and defending silver medalist Holdener clocking 1:45.10.

Liensberger dedicated her silver to her late grandfather.

"After all I had this season, I am just so thankful and proud and I want to give this victory a little bit to my grandpa who is with me. It wasn't nice to lose him but I know he's here and of course he looked out for me," she said.

"I am so grateful for everything, all the hard things that came to me in the past season. Now it's just wonderful to know I can be fast and ski at that level. It's amazing to show that today."

After sliding out in Monday's giant slalom, American Shiffrin had another day to forget after skiing out within seconds of Wednesday's opening run.

The three-time Olympic medalist finished fourth in the slalom at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, having claimed gold in Sochi, and on Wednesday she couldn't hide her disappointment after her latest slip.

"I was planning to go with the most aggressive and challenging line to ski, but I didn't make it pass," said Shiffrin.

"I had the intention to do my best skiing and my quickest turns, but in order to do that I had to push the line, the tactics and it's really on the limit then and things happen so fast that there is no space to slip up, even a little bit.

"It's a letdown of everything, letting down myself, letting down other people."