Shiffrin gets career win 95th title in first World Cup slalom after season-ending injury for rival Vlhova
— Mikaela Shiffrin earned her record-extending career win 95 by triumphing in a women’s World Cup slalom Sunday, a day after the American ski star’s main rival sustained a season-ending injury.
In the first race without Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhova, Shiffrin edged out Croatian teenager Zrinka Ljutic by 0.14 seconds. Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson in third and Switzerland’s Camille Rast in fourth were the only other racers to finish within a second of Shiffrin’s time.
It was Shiffrin’s fifth slalom win of the season and her 58th in total, a World Cup record for both men and women.
Shiffrin also set a record for most World Cup podiums in a single discipline with 82, having shared the previous best mark with Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark, who had 81 top-three results in slalom in the 1970s and ’80s.
Vlhova crashed and tore ligaments in her right knee in Saturday’s giant slalom near her hometown in the Tatra mountains.
Shiffrin and Vlhova have been dominating women’s slalom skiing for years and combined to win 14 of the last 15 races, including all eight this season, in a series only interrupted by Lena Duerr when the German triumphed at the Czech resort Spindleruv Mlyn a year ago.
Shiffrin built what looked like a comfortable lead of 0.52 seconds over Ljutic in the opening run, but almost came up short in the second.
Shiffrin was just 0.02 seconds ahead at the penultimate checkpoint, but had a strong finish to deny the Croatian her first win.
Vlhova became the third former overall champion who had their season end prematurely this month. On the men’s side, Alexis Pinturault and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde underwent surgery for various injuries after they crashed at speed races in Wengen, Switzerland.
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