January 29, 2023 - A historic day for Croatian skiers as Zrinka Ljutić finishes on the podium for the first time and Leona Popović finishes fifth in the slalom at the World Cup in Špindlerův Mlyn on Sunday!
Nineteen-year-old Zrinka Ljutić, who had a starting number of 17, was third in the first run. In the end, she finished 49 hundredths of a second behind the winner German Lena Duerr, who had a time of 1:30.91. American Mikaela Shiffrin was second, six-hundredths of a second behind Duerr. Leona Popović was 84 hundredths of a second behind the winner (1:31.75).
This is historic for Croatian skiing for many reasons. For starters, this is Ljutić's first podium finish of her career. So far, her best result at the World Cup was fifth place in Courchevel last year. Popović also achieved the best result of her career after winning fifth place today. She finished sixth place twice last year - in Levi and Schladming.
Ljutić thus secured the first podium finish for Croatian women's skiing after 16 years. This is also the first time after 18 years that Croatia has two skiers among the top ten (Janica Kostelić and Nika Fleiss were second and sixth, respectively). Never before have two Croatian representatives been in the World Cup's top 5.
With today's result, Shiffrin secured the small Crystal Globe in the slalom but failed to achieve her 86th victory and equal the record held by Swede Ingemar Stenmark for the number of wins at the World Cup.
In the standings of female slalom skiers, Shiffrin has 785 points, Swiss Wendy Holdener is in second with 530, and Petra Vlhova is in third with the same number of points. Popović is seventh with 237 points, and Ljutić is tenth with 190 points.
In the overall standings, Shiffrin is first with 1697 points, Vlhova is second with 966 points, and Swiss Lara Gut Behrami is third with 906 points. Popović is 28th and has 237 points, and Ljutić is 33rd with 208 points.
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