Marion Mortefon with a perfect day
Today was all about France's Marion Mortefon. The reigning world champion scored a brilliant hat-trick and reduced Sarah-Quita Offringa's lead from 12.5 points to just 4.6 points ahead of the final day. Although Mortefon was happy to have closed the gap, she was also a little disappointed as the 31-year-old missed the penultimate jibe in Elimination 13 - the last race of the day - which dropped her back to sixth place. A win would have reduced the gap to Sarah-Quita to just 2.3 points ahead of the final day. If Mortefon had been told at the start of the day that she would only be 4.6 points behind the leader, she would probably have accepted the offer, and so she now goes into Monday as a title contender.
Sarah-Quita Offringa was only able to achieve a top 3 result today, as she was inferior to the foils at the start of the day in weaker winds. In addition, the extension of the course to 6 gybes further favoured the foils. Offringa remains in the lead, but will no doubt be praying for stronger winds on the final day
Blanca Alabau put in her best performance of the event so far. The current World Tour leader took two second and one third place before ending the day with a win, which puts the Spaniard in the top three with one day to go.
Nothing decided for the men
It remains incredibly tight at the top of the men's standings ahead of the final day. Although Nicolas Goyard is in the lead, only 1.9 points separate him from Johan Soe, meaning that everything is still wide open on Monday. Soe was just 0.9 points behind before the start of Elimination 9, but the young Dane suffered a nasty fall on the first shot that prevented him from scoring another top result, while Goyard himself had to survive a critical moment before battling into third place. The two leaders have established themselves at the top of the leaderboard and it looks like there will be a direct battle between them for the title!
Matteo Iachino had his best day of the season so far, as the Italian improved from race to race over the course of the day. The 2016 World Champion started the race with a solid fourth place before improving in Elimination 8 and finishing third. Things went even better for the 33-year-old after that, as he secured his first win since Japan last year, moving Iachino up to third place at the end of the day.
Battle for the podium still open
It will be exciting to see how the battle for the title develops tomorrow and who can take the final spot on the podium: Iachino, Rutkowski or Vrieswijk? The three are only four points apart. A further 10 points behind them are Bruno Martini and Pierre Mortefon - they will probably have no chance of the podium as long as everything runs reasonably normally at the front.
At one point, Michele Becker was even within reach of the podium. After the seventh elimination, the German benefited the most from the second stringer and was able to improve from eighth to fourth place. But then he made a mistake in the quarter-finals, failed to qualify for the semi-finals and accumulated a lot of points on his account. Without the chance of another scratch result, no great leaps forward are possible on the final day. Nevertheless, Michele Becker has fully established himself among the world's best in his first full PWA season. After fifth place on Lake Garda and eighth in Pozo, he is looking for his third top 10 result in the third World Cup of the year, so he can definitely establish himself at the front of the field in the annual rankings.
Nico Prien also skied a good contest, albeit without any major upward slips. He reached the grand final four times and had to settle for the small final five times. He is currently in eleventh place but only a few points outside the top 10, which will certainly be his goal on the final day.
Good forecast for the final day
Before the freestylers take over on Tuesday, the slalom pilots can expect another windy day, if you believe the forecasts. The battle between foil and fin will once again be exciting. If you want to know what equipment the riders have registered for the season and the event, you can find Here is the complete list.
