Shiffrin wins slalom and takes quest for 100th victory to North America

Mikaela Shiffrin stood at the top of the Kirchenkar slalom course prior to her second run on Saturday morning in Gurgl, Austria, with the No. 1 bib and race lead. On paper, that’s the equivalent of handing Mariano Rivera the ball with a two-run, ninth-inning lead.

But in Shiffrin’s mind, the cards were stacked against her.

“I was nervous at the start,” the all-time winningest World Cup skier admitted to FIS media, adding that the dry surface reminded her of the Beijing Olympics.

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“And we all know how that went for me,” she continued. “So I was like, ‘Oh, please, just make it past the fifth gate.'”

The Edwards skier did more than that, of course. She navigated the fading light and fast fall line on a cold track, posting a two-run total of 1 minute, 40.22 seconds to win her 99th World Cup by 0.55 seconds. Lara Colturi and Camile Rast finished second and third, respectively, earning their first-career podiums in the process.

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The win was Shiffrin’s record-extending 62nd slalom win and her sixth straight in the event on the World Cup circuit, but her first on the Gurgl slope.

“It feels really satisfying to have a really great run down that slope,” she said in the live broadcast post-race interview. “What a wonderful day.”

Paula Moltzan was the second-best American in the field, finishing sixth.

“I’m happy. I think it’s nice to have four slalom runs under my belt now and most of them being pretty consistent,” Moltzan said. “It’s nice to find some consistency and tempo in slalom as it can change day to day. I’m excited to move forward to Killington.”

The leader’s chair was a revolving door in the run-up to Shiffrin’s final run as five straight skiers stole the lead from one another, starting with Sweden’s Sara Hector. Moltzan came next, followed by Germany’s Lena Duerr, Rast, and Colturi. Every skier took advantage of the relatively wide-open course set up, where time was there for the taking in the lower section.

“It was a new slope for everybody, and we didn’t really know how to ski to be fast and how it feels to be fast,” Rast told FIS. “I did a mistake on the first run before the flat part and lost a lot of time there, and (the second) time it was much better.” 

As each athlete lowered the bar, Shiffrin wondered if she could meet the challenge.

“I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel with the surface; it was getting darker, it was also a very fast fall line (and) quick course, and sometimes when I’m not sure about the feeling under feet, I take too much time to make the turn,” she said. “So, I knew all the struggles I would have and tried to push anyway. My skis felt perfect.” 

She burst out of the gate, stumbling slightly in the second sector, where she only managed the 18th-fastest split. But the Edwards skier felt the mistake and tightened the screws over the third and fourth intervals to finish with the fifth-fastest second run of the day.

“I thought after the inspection second run, I felt that the skiing on the first run would not have been enough,” Shiffrin said. “I needed to go more down the hill, I needed to release it more, I needed to be quicker, more athletic — some things just needed to be better to hold on to the victory.”

The win sets her up to claim her 100th-career World Cup win on home soil in Killington, where she has won six times going back to 2016.

“I guess there’s a bit of pressure around it, but I try to ignore that,” she said of the milestone’s timing. “If it happens, it’s wonderful; if it doesn’t, kind of nothing to cry about in the grand scheme, but I hope to have a really good performance in front of the home crowd.”