Camille Rast and Wendy Holdener provide the next Swiss highlight at the World Championships in Saalbach. The Valais woman becomes world champion in the slalom ahead of the Schwyz woman. After the race, Rast reveals her secret recipe for World Championship success: take it easy.
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- Camille Rast is crowned slalom queen 46 hundredths ahead of Wendy Holdener.
- In an interview with SRF, the newly crowned world champion emphasizes her relaxed attitude and a generally very successful season.
- Rast reveals that despite her medal hopes, she didn't want to get stuck in her ways: "I wasn't fully focused on this week."
Much had already spoken for Camille Rast after half the stint. She had set a best time with a fantastic run, thanks to which she was able to distance herself from her competitors by 58 hundredths and more.
And the Valais skier made perfect use of this promising starting position - and did the same to Vreni Schneider. The Glarus native was the last Swiss world champion in the slalom 34 years ago. She had also achieved this in Saalbach.
"This is brilliant. I pulled it off from top to bottom," beams Rast in an interview with SRF, giving her performance the grossly understated rating of "good".
The 25-year-old crowned her achievements this winter with World Championship gold. In recent weeks, she has won her first two victories in the World Cup. In Killington, Vermont, and in Flachau in Salzburgerland, she was unbeatable. In the seven slaloms to date, she has never finished lower than 5th place, and this consistency was of course also reflected in the discipline rankings. Camille Rast traveled to Glemmtal in the lead.
This is probably one of the reasons why the skier from Valais hadn't really planned much for the World Championships. "I really wasn't fully focused on this week. I knew that a medal was possible in the slalom, but I didn't put so much pressure on myself because my season is already great anyway," laughs Rast in an interview with SRF after her triumph.
She thought to herself: "If I win, that's great, and if I don't, I'll just keep going." Not putting too much pressure on herself is something she has learned recently. "I always wanted more. But it doesn't work like that," reveals Rast, who was therefore deliberately relaxed: "Today I took everything with a little more ease. Nice weather, cool piste, loads of people," laughs Rast. And: gold!
Silver for Holdener, Meillard and Christen are eliminated
Wendy Holdener was the fastest in the second run, making up two positions and securing her third medal at these World Championships, her ninth overall at these major events. In the previous days, she had also won silver in the team competition and in the team combined.
The two Swiss women, who ensured the first Swiss double success in a World Championship slalom, were separated by 46 hundredths in the final classification. They had already taken the first two places twice this winter, in Killington, Vermont, and in Flachau in Salzburgerland, also in World Cup slaloms - both times in the same order as now in Saalbach.
Mélanie Meillard, who was in 10th place after the first run due to a major blunder, risked everything in the second run. However, her very good run in the upper half of the course ended prematurely after a catch. The same thing had already happened to Eliane Christen, the fourth Swiss participant, in the first run.
