Due to an ankle injury, Slovak skier Petra Vlhová will not compete in the alpine combined discipline and is thus done at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Her coach Mauro Pini explained the decision to quit by the fact that she has persistent pain in the inflamed ankle tendon of her left foot. Because of this problem, she missed Friday's super-G and did not even start Saturday's first downhill training.
Out of the originally planned four disciplines, Vlhová started in only two. She finished 14th in the giant slalom and won the slalom discipline. “All my life I wanted to win Olympic gold in slalom and it exhausted me mentally and physically. I'm empty, I put everything into that slalom. I feel that I would not be 100 percent in the combined, I could get injured. After the Olympics I still have a lot of races to do and I have a chance to win the big globe,” said Vlhová.
This season, she has already won the small globe for her overall win in the slalom classification in the World Cup series and still has a real chance to successfully defend the big globe for overall winner from last season. She is currently second in the overall classification with 1,009 points, only 17 points behind the leading American Mikaela Shiffrin (1,026). The third Italian Sofia Goggia is already 240 points behind the Slovak (769).
Source: TASR
