The first women’s slalom of the 2009 calendar year saw Germany’s Maria Riesch take her third victory of the season… in the discipline. Clocking a two-run cumulative time of one minute 58.96 seconds, Riesch convincingly edged runner up Nicole Gius of Italy by 0.44s and third-place finisher Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic by 0.63s.

Clocking the fastest time of the first run, the USA’s Lindsey Vonn failed to complete the second course, allowing Riesch to take home her second consecutive slalom win.

Of the 76 racers taking part in this sole event held on Croatian snow, 24 skiers failed to complete the first run including Canada’s Anna Goodman (Mont-Tremblant, QC) and Brigitte Acton (Mont-Tremblant, QC). Both narrowly missed completing the first course but faced challenges on the 63rd gate of the 68-gate course.

Wearing bib number 27, Goodman was aiming to repeat her career best 19-place result achieved on the same slope just about a year ago. Since the start of the 2008-2009 season, Goodman has achieved four top 24 results and accumulated a career best 35 World Cup points in slalom. With two slalom races remaining prior to the World Championships to be held in Val d’Isère, France from February 3 to 15, Goodman sits in 25th place in the slalom World Cup standings.

With bib number 41, Brigitte Acton had her sights on building momentum from her second career best 19th place result achieved in slalom less than a week ago in Semmering, AUT. With a total of 16 World Cup points so far this season, Acton sits in 35th place in the slalom standings.

Following this event, Vonn remains at the top of the overall World Cup standings with 1648 points, edging Riesch by 221 points. Canada’s Britt Janyk (Whistler, BC) and Emily Brydon (Fernie, B.C.) are the top two Canucks sitting in 12th and 13th position with 551 and 544 points respectively.

The ladies White Circus now moves to Maribor, SLO for a series of technical events including a giant slalom on Saturday followed by a slalom the next day.