Tessa Worley lead after the first run and held on to win her 15th World Cup Giant Slalom race in the Austrian town of Lienz. With no Mikaela Shiffrin or Lara Gut-Behrami, Worley made good of her opportunity as Petra Vlhova also benefitted from the absentees in taking second and Sara Hector taking third. Federica Brignone took fourth and Ragnhild Mowinckel rounded out the top five.
Brignone produced the run of the second run as pulled herself up from 12th overall into fourth with the fastest second run time. Brignone had seen what Katharine Truppe had achieved from going early on the second run and then bettered it. Truppe posted the second fastest time to move up from 27th after run on into 9th.
With Robinson (5th after run one, straddled gate near the finish), Holdener (15th after run one) and Tviberg (11th after run one) all crashing out, there of five non finishers, this was a great opportunity for some of the lower ranked racers to score big World Cup points.
Vlhova was the big beneficiary of Shiffrin and Gut-Behrami not racing as she was able to move 80 points closer to Shiffrin and just under 60 points closer to Goggia as she finished down in 12th place. The saying 'you can only beat those in the race' was certainly evident.
With no Austrian crowd in Lienz due to the Covid restrictions that are in place at World Cup races now, there was an eerie feeling in the finish reminiscent of last year. The worry now is that more races will have to undergo these restrictions should the Covid restrictions not be relaxed.
Shiffrin holds on to the lead in the Giant Slalom World Cup after two race wins and a second in the three races prior to this race, just 18 points ahead of Hector. Goggia pulls 22 points closer to Shiffrin the race for the Overall.
Next up, the women start the Slalom in Lienz for the last race of the year.
Full results