Associated Press
Nov 23, 2024, 09:27 AM ET
GURGL, Austria — Mikaela Shiffrin is taking the quest for her 100th career World Cup victory to North America.
The American skiing star might even get the one win she needs for the milestone in what is like a home race for her in Killington, Vermont, which hosts a giant slalom and a slalom next weekend.
“I guess it’s not impossible, but so many things have to go right,” Shiffrin said Saturday in the Austrian Alps after earning her record-extending 99th victory.
Shiffrin, who is from Colorado, honed her skills at Burke Mountain Academy, close to Killington.
“From the outside, it looks easy, or it looks like it’s supposed to happen this way. But it takes, like even today, so much energy to bring out my top skiing, so it’s certainly not easy,” the American said about approaching the landmark win on home snow.
After the events in Killington, the 16-day North American portion of the World Cup continues with two giant slaloms in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, and a super-G in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
“I guess there is a bit of pressure around it, but I’ll try to ignore that,” said Shiffrin, who won the first slalom of the season in Levi, Finland, a week ago. “Anyway, if it happens, it’s wonderful. If it doesn’t happen, 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.”
No other skier, male or female, has won more than 86 World Cup races. Shiffrin set the best mark when she overtook Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark in March 2023.
Shiffrin has triumphed in the past six slaloms she competed in, including all four since her return from a knee injury following a downhill crash in January.
On Saturday, the two-time Olympic champion held on to her first-run lead to beat Italian prodigy Lara Colturi, who starts for Albania, by 0.55 seconds and Swiss skier Camille Rast by 0.57. They both got their first career podium result.
In the first run, Shiffrin wasn’t clean going into the steep of the Kirchenkar course but gained time on all competitors with a near-flawless section toward the finish.
“It’s a pretty strange surface, like cold and dry. It’s hard to be clean on the skis. So I was feeling a little bit funky on some spots,” Shiffrin said. “But in the end, I kept pushing forward, just stayed on top of it and pushed to the finish. I find it to be really challenging on this condition to find the right setup to feel clean and to feel like you can unleash the skis.”
Shiffrin acknowledged to being “really nervous at the top” before the start of her second run.
“I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel with the surface. It was getting darker. Sometimes when I am not sure about the feeling under my feet, then I take too much time to make the turn,” she said.
“I could hear all the women going down and their teams were cheering, and that always means they had a really good run. And it was getting darker,” said Shiffrin, adding she didn’t “think it’s happening today.”
Shiffrin initially extended her lead to more than seven-tenths of a second and lost only fractions of that over the final two sections.
“It feels really satisfying to have a really great run down this slope. What a wonderful day,” she said.
Sharing the podium with two young competitors earning their first top-three result made Shiffrin think back to when she got her first career podium — at a slalom at another Austrian venue, Lienz, in December 2011.
“It was incredible, with Marlies [Raich] and Tina [Maze],” recalled Shiffrin, who started that race with bib No. 40 but finished third. “It was such a special feeling, like ‘Oh my God, I am here, and I should be here, and I belong here.’ It’s just in the beginning of your career. And the future, there is no limit. That’s just such a wonderful feeling.”
Swiss skier Wendy Holdener, who was second after the opening run, dropped to fourth, and Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzan trailed by 1.10 seconds in sixth.
Olympic champion Petra Vlhova, Shiffrin’s biggest rival in slalom, hasn’t returned to racing after undergoing knee surgery last season.
Gurgl was a new venue for the women’s World Cup, after it staged a men’s race last season. The resort in the Austrian Alps is just a 15-kilometer drive from Soelden, where the traditional season opener took place four weeks ago.
The men race a slalom on the same hill Sunday.