Petra Vlhova At 2022 Winter Olympics: How Has She Done So Far? When Is She Racing Next? How Can I Watch On TV?

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Petra Vlhova is set to battle it out with legendary American alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin in the women’s slalom this week, with the Slovakian going toe-to-toe with the best in the business to upset the odds.

It hasn’t been plain sailing for Vlhova so far in China, but the alpine skier from the small town of Liptovsky Mikulas in Slovakia – who won the overall World Cup title last year – is fancied to rival Shiffrin in what is set to be a contest like no other at Beijing.

Vlhova, 26, can boast a giant slalom gold in the 2019 Åre World Championships, whilst picking up bronze in the slalom at the same tournament. She has four world championship silver medals, two in the combined and slalom events at Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2021, the combined at Åre and a team event silver in 2017’s St. Moritz championships.

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She has 25 wins and 54 podium finishes in her time across slalom, giant slalom, super-G, combined and parallel. She has enjoyed a rise from underdog to ‘best of the rest’ in recent years and is now expected to cause Shiffrin a headache, or even go for gold herself.

In the opposite corner, Shiffrin – the favourite to scoop gold – is a three-time overall World Cup champion with 73 World Cup alpine skiing wins under her belt – the third highest of all-time – not to mention the 47 Slalom wins, the most of any skier in a single discipline. The 26-year-old tops the charts as a six-time slalom champion, securing her first gold medal as the youngest ever to do so.

The Slovakian is already causing a stir, though. Head-to-head across the last three seasons (including the current one), Vlhova has won 12 slalom races compared to Shiffrin’s seven. Coming into the games after topping the slalom standing this year, Vlhova is being widely tipped to take Shiffrin all the way.

HOW HAS SHE DONE SO FAR IN BEIJING?

The Slovakian has had a disappointing start to proceedings so far at this year’s Games. She finished 14th overall in Monday’s giant slalom.

She could only manage a 13th best time of 59.34 in the first run, and failed to build on that with another poor second-run, coming in with a time of 1:58.15, ranking much further down the pecking order than she would have liked and probably would have expected.