{"id":574587,"date":"2025-11-16T18:10:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T18:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/574587\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T18:10:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T18:10:17","slug":"great-britain-make-best-ever-world-cup-start-as-laurie-taylor-narrowly-misses-out-on-podium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/574587\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Britain make best-ever World Cup start as Laurie Taylor narrowly misses out on podium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great Britain<\/a> enjoyed a stellar start to the Alpine ski World Cup season as Laurie Taylor achieved a career-best fourth-place finish in the first men\u2019s slalom race of the year.<\/p>\n

The race in Levi<\/a>, Lapland<\/a> also produced Britain\u2019s best-ever combined performance at a World Cup, with veteran Dave Ryding<\/a> – competing in his final season – seventh.<\/p>\n

And with the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina next year rapidly approaching it was the perfect time to produce it.<\/p>\n

It is only the second time Britain has achieved two top-10 finishers in a World Cup event, with Ryding finishing seventh in Aspen<\/a> in March 2024, which also featured Taylor\u2019s best result until now, an eight-place finish.<\/p>\n

Levi was historic on multiple fronts. Brazilian Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, who switched to representing his mother\u2019s native country in 2024 having previously raced for Norway, sealed Brazil\u2019s first-ever World Cup win.<\/p>\n

Pinheiro Braathen, the overall slalom World Cup winner in 2023, was the last to complete his second run in Finland and withstood the pressure – having set the best time in his opening run – to beat France\u2019s Clement Noel by 0.31 seconds.<\/p>\n

Taylor had led for most of the second run, having significantly improved on his first run which left him in 15th place.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old was ultimately pushed off the podium by just four-hundredths of a second, with local hero Eduard Hallberg pipping him to bronze and the first podium of his career.<\/p>\n

Taylor told BBC Sport: \u201cIt felt amazing, I had no idea that was where I was going to end up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe run felt solid and in charge. I just kept climbing [in the standings], it was quite surreal. It’s a huge confidence boost for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve been working so hard for so long, so to break in like that to fourth, it really means the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pinheiro<\/p>\n

Pinheiro Braathen won a reindeer, the traditional prize for the winner (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

GB\u2019s men\u2019s slalom coach Jai Geyer said: \u201cThat’s the best start to the season we’ve had as a team, with something we’ve never done before here – two in the top seven – so we’re all pumped, great for the team. What a solid start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levi, the first of 11 slalom races on the World Cup circuit, also marked the first time Britain had entered four skiers in a race on the tour. Billy Major finished 27th and 20-year-old debutant Luca Carrick-Smith did not finish.<\/p>\n

On Saturday Mikaela Shiffrin extended her record-winning haul of World Cup wins to 102,<\/a> clocking the fastest time on both runs to beat 19-year-old Albanian Lara Colturi by 1.66 seconds. Germany\u2019s Emma Aicher was third.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Great Britain enjoyed a stellar start to the Alpine ski World Cup season as Laurie Taylor achieved a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,182200,393,4884,182198,182199,1144,182201,712,16,15,1764,1514],"class_list":{"0":"post-574587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-dave-ryding","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-laurie-taylor","14":"tag-lucas-pinheiro-braathen","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-pinheiro-braathen","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales","21":"tag-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115560725311438278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}