Tremblant: New World Cup Venue but Shiffrin a Familiar Winner?
The first women’s World Cup ski race at Tremblant in 40 years – and only the second event ever – goes ahead as scheduled on Saturday. The Quebec resort has been given the green light for two AUDI FIS Ski World Cup Women’s Giant Slalom competitions over the weekend.
With the Zermatt-Cervinia’s Downhill event cancelled due to strong winds in mid-November, the 2023/24 Women’s World Cup ski season has consisted of only Slalom and Giant Slalom races. So far, three skiers, Lara Gut-Behrami, Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova, have dominated proceedings.
Mikaela Shiffrin is an outstanding 4/1 proposition to score in Canada on Saturday. ©GettyImages
Gut-Behrami won the season-opening Giant Slalom in Austria and took the next Giant Slalom race last weekend in Killington, Vermont, USA. Vlhova landed this column a 6/1 winner when scoring in Levi, Finland. She had a second contest in the Finnish resort at her mercy before an uncharacteristic mistake resulted in a DNF (did not finish).
Her loss was Shiffrin’s gain, and the American superstar claimed the gold for career victory number 89. She followed up with success in another Slalom in her home race in Vermont last Sunday. Vlhova followed her home just 33 hundredths of a second adrift.
Who Is the Tremblant Betting Favourite?
Things will be finely poised when the athletes head to the start gate in Tremblant on Saturday. But who will prevail? The winter sports betting sites quote Lara Gut-Behrami as their 6/4 favourite for the contest. Shiffrin follows on 4/1. Federica Brignone – another popular skier with our followers – is top-priced 6/1 with Unibet. The same firm offers the industry’s best odds for Sara Hector and Petra Vlhova. Both are 9/1.
Hector has finished fourth in this season’s two Giant Slaloms. It indicates the reigning Giant Slalom Olympic champion is some way short of her best. She is easily dismissed as a potential winner, as is Vlhova, who is much better suited to Slalom racing than its faster but close relation. Nevertheless, one of this pair could undoubtedly reach the podium.
Brignone did take second in the season’s opening race. However, that success came on a steep Solden slope, and this fearless Super-G specialist will struggle to better the result on this new and tamer slope.
Giant Discrepancy in Win Ratio
And so, the winter sports betting sites have the right two at the head of the betting. But do they have them the right way around? At the start of the season, no expert would have placed the Swiss stunner ahead of the most successful World Cup ski racer of all time in a Giant Slalom contest.
Lara Gut-Behrami’s success in Solden at the start of the year represented her first Giant Slalom race win in seven years. In the same period, Shiffrin collected 20 Giant Slalom races. Based on those figures, how would you bet on this if you were a bookie? Once again, our editorial team are supporting the stats. We like Shiffrin, we love her 4/1 odds.
The American is on her home continent and will have a stronger than usual – and undoubtedly vociferous – fan club at the bottom of the slope. Her record in North America is phenomenal and following her poor performance in the season-opening race, she expressed an intention to “build up to top form”. We suspect that point has arrived.
Recent success means the ‘raced twice and won twice’, Lara Gut-Behrami is sure to be full of confidence. It is good news for fans that she has collected two golds, as this sport does not need a Max Verstappen/F1 scenario. But everything will be against her in Tremblant, and she makes little appeal at skinny 6/4 odds.
Kilde Too Short, Dressen Too Big
Also, on Saturday, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde is a solid favourite to take the season’s first Men’s Downhill contest in Beaver Creek, Colorado, on the famous Birds of Prey course. This is a slope the Norwegian has made his own in recent years. The 31-year-old won the Super-G and Downhill World Cup races here in 2021 and 2022.
Kilde, who also topped the time sheets in the first training session on Tuesday, has the right credentials. But trading on 6/5, he is very short in the betting, and his odds do not represent great value.
Marco Odermatt is more attractive at the 11/2 offered by bet365. The Swiss skier finished second to Kilde in three of his four 2021/2022 Beaver Creek races. He also won Super-G contests here in 2019 and 2021. The significant fact that he has never won a World Cup Downhill race makes him a place-only or each-way play at best.
Just a handful of winter sports betting sites will offer each-way opportunities on this contest – as Kilde’s 6/5 price tag makes each-way betting on an event of this nature a dangerous proposition for the layers.
If you can identify a site offering each-way terms and 100/1 about Thomas Dressen, give the 30-year-old some consideration. Injury has blighted the German’s career in recent years, but he has back-class in spades.
A semblance of the form that has given him ten podium finishes – including five World Cup victories during a golden 2018-2020 period – would be enough to put him in the mix. He could easily finish towards the top of the scoreboard.
