BRATISLAVA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Petra Vlhova of Slovakia celebrated her second slalom World Cup victory in Flachau, Austria on Tuesday.
Vlhova crossed the finish line one tenth of a second ahead of Sweden's Anna Swenn Larsson and 0.43 seconds ahead of Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States.
It was the first time the 24-year-old Vlhova took two consecutive FIS World Cup slaloms in a row, following her first triumph of the season on January 4th in Zagreb.
Since January 2017, either Vlhova or American Mikaela Shiffrin have been standing on top of the slalom podium.
Shiffrin slipped to third place in Flachau for her worst result in two years, losing back-to-back slaloms for the first time in over five years.
"It was a very important victory, I am confident in my skiing. It is amazing to win here in Flachau again this year. I like it here a lot with all the fans from Slovakia cheering. It is really important and I'm so so happy," said Vlhova.
Vlhova dominated both runs, leading the first by 0.6 seconds ahead of Shiffrin and managing to hold onto the lead in the second run, despite making a couple of mistakes on the course designed by Shiffrin's head coach Mike Day.
It was Vlhova's 31st career podium, making her the most successful Slovak Alpine skier ahead of Veronika Velez-Zuzulova's 30 podium finishes who retired in 2018.
The race in Flachau is the most popular on the calendar with almost 15,000 spectators cheering the evening finale and the biggest prize-money of the season waiting for the winner, more than 82,000 USD.
Shiffrin is still leading the slalom standings 80 points ahead of Vlhova and the overall World Cup standings by 276 points, also ahead of Vlhova.
