Holdener edges Shiffrin, Vlhova to win women's slalom / Photo: © AFP
Holdener edges Shiffrin, Vlhova to win women's slalom
Petra Vlhova's bid for a first World Cup win of the season continues after Wendy Holdener and Mikaela Shiffrin nudged her into third place in Sunday's slalom in Sestriere.
The Olympic champion in the discipline topped the leader board after the first run but it was the Swiss skier Holdener who came through strongest in the second run to take the win, her second of the season.
Following her victory in Killington two weeks ago and second place in one of the Levi slaloms at the start of the season, Holdener posted a combined time of 1 minute 56.29 seconds to finish 0.47 seconds ahead of Shiffrin.
The American -- four time world champion in the discipline and Olympic champion in 2014 -- moved up from third after the first run and now sits level with Holdener at the top of the discipline standings.
Shiffrin is 19 points clear of Holdener in the overall standings.
Sitting third in both discipline and overall standings is Vlhova who must be wondering what she needs to do to taste victory this season.
Having led at halfway in Saturday's giant slalom only to finish third, the Slovakian repeated the trick again on Sunday.
She led Holdener by 0.24sec after the first run but ended 0.70sec behind the Swiss.
Vlhova has endured a frustrating campaign so far -- she has finished third on three occasions including the two slaloms in Levi which were both won by Shiffrin.
The most impressive run of the day came from Swedish teenager Hanna Aronsson Elfman.
After posting the 16th quickest time on the first run, the 19-year-old put in a blistering second run, posting the fastest time of the day of 56.69sec -- 0.85sec ahead of Holdener who was next quickest on her second run.
It took Aronsson Elfman to fourth overall, not quite good enough to get her on to the podium but that would appear to be just a matter of time.
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(H.Duplantier--LPdF)
