Vonn and Gut flop at World Cup slalom opener

The pair were both surprise starters with Gut, last year’s winner, declaring herself fit on Friday after a long knee injury lay off and Vonn, also struggling at 33 to recover from lingering pain from a broken arm, announcing her prence on Thursday.

Italy’s Manuela Molgg took the first, wind-shortened run in just 55.57sec, a slender 0.12sec ahead of World Cup overall title holder Mikaela Shiffrin and 0.33 ahead of Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg.

Gut, who announced her return saying “You can’t cage a lion” missed a gate near the second time check already trailing the lead by over a second in the technical event.

Vonn finished 3.31sec off the pace and failed to make the cut for the second leg later Saturday.