CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (Reuters) – Slovakia’s World Cup overall leader Petra Vlhova failed to qualify for the women’s parallel event on Tuesday, a day after winning silver in the Combined at the Alpine skiing world championships.
Vlhova did not finish her opening giant slalom run, while Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami, gold medallist in super-G and second in the World Cup overall standings, missed the cut.
Gut-Behrami’s team mate Wendy Holdener led the way into the knockout stage at Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The parallel, with two racers competing at the same time on adjacent slopes, is being held for the first time at championship level. The top eight on each course qualify for the finals.
In the men’s parallel, Austria’s Combined gold medallist Marco Schwarz was the big-name casualty of the morning qualifiers.
Switzerland’s Loic Meillard topped the red course list, with Austria’s Fabio Gstrein top of the blue list.
Holdener, an Olympic gold medallist in the team event at the 2018 Pyeongchang games and a double Combined world champion, will race American Nina O’Brien in the opening round of the afternoon finals.
Italy, without a medal so far on home snow, had Federica Brignone and Marta Bassino through, the latter by just one hundredth of a second, and set to race each other in the quarter-finals if they progress.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
