She was born on 13th June 1995 in Liptovský Mikuláš. She grew up on the slopes of the Chopok mountain in Jasná. As a youth, her great talent was already visible. In 2012, she secured a resounding victory in the slalom at the first Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck. In 2014, she made her debut at the Olympics, at Sochi, at the age of only 17, and also became the Junior World Champion in the slalom on home snow at Jasná. She won her first World Cup Slalom on 13th December 2015 in Åre, Sweden and her first major medal at the 2017 World Championships at Crans-Montana, where she helped the Slovak mixed team win silver.
She took 5th place in the combined at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Then she moved into the ranks of the world’s top ski racers. In 2019, she snagged three medals at the World Championships in Åre and became the first Slovak to win a gold medal in the giant slalom. She finished the season in 2nd place in the overall standings, the slalom and the giant slalom. While she was “only” 3rd in the World Cup standings the following year, she won the small crystal globe for the slalom and parallel slalom. In the 2020–21 season, she won the most prized trophy in alpine skiing – the Big Crystal Globe as the overall World Cup winner! She made a decisive step towards winning the Big Crystal Globe when she won the World Cup giant slalom on 7th March 2021 at home in Jasná. It was just before the season finale and gave her a psychological advantage over her closest competitor and defending champion, Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland.
Adding to her success, she also took silver medals in the slalom and combined at the World Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo. In February 2022 she is heading to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, as a candidate to win several medals.
Petra Vlhová took over the imaginary title of the Queen of Slovak sports from the biathlete Anastasiya Kuzmina, and her popularity at home rivals that of the cyclist Peter Sagan, who for a long time has been Slovakia’s most popular athlete.
Ľubomír Souček
