Emma Aicher won the season-opening slalom in Levi on Saturday, the first slalom victory of her World Cup career. The German, already a winner in downhill and super-G, beat Lara Colturi by 0.43 seconds and Katharina Truppe by 0.50.
Two runs, one boss
Starting with bib 1, Emma Aicher set the fastest first run in 55.74. Lara Colturi was 0.36 seconds back and Zrinka Ljutić 0.88. Everyone else was already more than a second behind.
In the second run, under the floodlights, the German only had to manage her lead. She did so without visible caution: on the screen, a near-perfect run in 56.88, the sixth-fastest of the run.
It is her sixth World Cup victory and her first in slalom, after two downhills and three super-Gs. Aicher has now won in three disciplines.
The win came the day after her birthday: she turned 23 on Friday. “It was definitely the best birthday present I could give myself,” she said, quoted by the organizers. Runner-up Lara Colturi turns 20 on Sunday. By Levi tradition, the winner receives a reindeer. Aicher’s, her first, does not have a name yet.
The top of the wall decides
The Levi Black course did the sorting, especially in the second run. On the screen, the snow lacked some grip at the top of the wall, the steepest section of the course.
Skiers who were too far forward, or too soft, lost their edges there. Those who got through best pushed hard on their skis, rather from the back. Cornelia Öhlund, seventh after the first run, was caught out there and did not finish.
Katharina Truppe took the risk in that wall. She set the fastest second run in 56.33 and climbed from fifth to third. Anna Swenn-Larsson, committed and clean from top to bottom, was second-fastest.
Camille Rast, the reigning world champion, went the other way. Fourth at the halfway mark, she skied clean but too carefully, and dropped to eleventh.
Colturi still waiting
Lara Colturi, shaken in the second run but fast enough to hold her place, finished second. The Albanian is still waiting for her first World Cup win.
Zrinka Ljutić, starting with bib 24, took fourth, 0.83 seconds back. She had been third after the first run.
© Igor Kupljenik / Sports Press Photo / Alamy Live News
High bibs in the spotlight
The surprise of the day wore bib 57. Madison Hoffman, thirteenth after the first run, was shaken in the wall but took the lead at the finish. She ended eighth, the best result of her career.
Already in 2023 in Levi, she had scored slalom points with a 25th place. According to Snow Australia, no Australian woman had scored since Zali Steggall in 2002.
Aline Hoepli, bib 41, was the other fine story. Twenty-fifth after the first run, the Swiss skier set the fourth-fastest second run in 56.82 and climbed to fourteenth, her best World Cup result.
Marie Lamure, bib 23, finished seventh. Lena Dürr, thirtieth and the last qualifier, gained twelve places with the seventh-fastest second run. Austrian rookie Valentina Rings-Wanner, starting 70th, finished 23rd.
© PTB Creative / @WorldCupLevi
A return and some absences
Petra Vlhová, back in slalom, finished sixteenth. The Slovak lost nearly a second when she took a gate too low in the second run.
Mikaela Shiffrin had skipped Levi and is due to return in Killington. Michelle Gisin, retired since November 3, was no longer in the field.
The Finnish crowd did not see any of its own in the second run. Six Finns started, five of them rookies; three did not finish the first run and three did not qualify.
On Sunday, the men take over with their slalom, again on Levi Black. Start times and start lists in the Ski25 calendar.