A ‘huge’ change helped Petra Vlhova to Olympic gold

By DANIELLA MATAR and ANDREW DAMPF
AP Sports Writers

BEIJING (AP) — Petra Vlhova added an Olympic gold medal to her growing list of achievements by winning the women’s slalom at the Beijing Games. Mikaela Shiffrin again failed to finish the race. It is Slovakia’s first Olympic medal in Alpine skiing. Vlhova already has already clinched the World Cup title in slalom. She was only eighth fastest after the first run but she made it up for an unofficial combined time of 1 minute, 44.98 seconds. Katharina Liensberger of Austria was 0.08 seconds slower than Vlhova in second. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland was third.