It was only three years ago that Lara Gut-Behrami (30) almost became desperate. In Sölden she lost three and a half seconds to winner Tessa Worley (32, Fri) in 14th place. For many it was clear: Because of their drifts. The Ticino woman put the ski across at the approach of the curves, the snow was dusting up, and there was little to see of carving.
Today doesn’t look much different at first glance. But: Gut-Behrami is as fast as an arrow, even faster on the steep slope than winner Mikaela Shiffrin (26, USA). How is that possible?
Trimmed to perfection
“Drifting can also mean braking – but only if you do it without feeling and too often. Lara struggled with it for a long time, suffered, fine-tuned, adjusted and finally trimmed it to perfection », analyzed ski legend Bernhard Russi after last winter.
In fact, Gut-Behrami continued to perfect her technique over the summer. In such a way that she was very self-critical on Saturday despite an extremely strong performance. “In the second run I started the turns too early on the steep slope, was not well on the outside ski, so I lost my pace.”
“Shiffrin drives more on the sidecut”
That is complaining at a high level. But that’s exactly how Gut-Behrami works – there is no perfect race for them. She doesn’t talk about her drifts, for far too long and she has been criticized for it many times.
Old slalom champion Didier Plaschy does it for Blick. He says: “Lara only drifted on the steep slope, that’s not that bad. She looks for the shortest route, while Shiffrin drives rounder and more on the waist. So there are two different driving styles, both of which were fast in this case. “