Crans-Montana, Switzerland – Sweden’s Sara Hector won Wednesday’s giant slalom at the FIS Junior World Alpine Ski Championships in Crans-Montana. She was followed by Italy’s Lisa Magdalena Agerer in second and Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener in third.nHector finished in dramatic fashion as she almost slid on her hip near the end of the course but was able to regain control.

The first run was a disaster as more than half of the field could not finish the race. One of the gates at the top of the last pitch seemed to create nightmares for the ladies as it was almost impossible to go through if you didn’t slow down beforehand. If you were beside a coach’s radio around the course, the most common word you would hear was “out” – referring to girls skiing out of the course.

“In all of my coaching career, I’ve never asked an athlete to slow down in a course before a gate, and I had to tell our girls to do that today. That was a crazy course,” said Canadian women’s head coach Jean-Sébastien Labrie.

Abby Ghent, of Edwards, Colo., was the top U.S. finisher in 29th. Three future Canadian stars finished in the top 20, including prospect athlete Madison Irwin, from Toronto, Ontario, who came out of the gate wearing bib No. 54, was 20th after the first run but managed to clock the fifth fastest second run making her jump to 10th overall.

“Giant slalom is definitely one of my strongest events so I was looking forward to this race. The first run was a struggle and going through those couple of gates right before the last pitch weren’t easy, but I was expecting it to be harder so it all turned out well,” said Irwin. “My second run was awesome. I made a little mistake near the end of the course but apart from that I had a pretty good run. I definitely cleaned it up compared to this morning. I’m really happy.”

Another Canadian prospect athlete from Canmore, Alberta, Madison McLeish, finished in 15th place while her teammate Julia Roth, who was disappointed by her 30th place in downhill yesterday, kept her focus and got her revenge today by finishing 17th.

The men take the World Junior Champs hill next for the men’s downhill on Thursday.

OFFICIAL RESULTS
FIS Junior World Ski Championships
Crans-Montana, Switzerland – Feb. 2, 2011
Giant Slalom

Gold: Sara Hector, Sweden, 2:28.27
Silver: Lisa Magdalena Agerer, 2.28.43
Bronze: Wendy Holdener, 2:29.44