Locked tight in an amazing zone of alpine skiing artistry, Mikaela Shiffrin nailed down her record-tying 82nd World Cup victory Sunday, Jan. 8 with a dominant wire-to-wire giant slalom victory at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.
Starting with bib No. 1 in a field of 64 racers, Shiffrin won the first 38-gate run on the Podkoren 3 course by 0.24 seconds. She at-tacked the second run for a resounding 0.77-second triumph over Italy’s Federica Brignone, who was the 2022 Olympic giant slalom silver medalist.
“I can’t believe it,” said Shiffrin after screaming in delight and fall-ing to her knees at the finish line, the International Ski Federation (FIS) said in its post-race report.
Shiffrin’s 82 World Cup wins include a record 51 in slalom, 17 in giant slalom, five in super giant slalom and three in downhill, plus six others in city events, parallel slalom and alpine combined.
It’s been a rapid climb. Shiffrin won her first World Cup race at age 17 in Dec. 2012 and has taken only 233 starts to reach 82 wins, the FIS reported. In contrast, Vonn won her first World Cup race at age 20 and her last at 33, starting 395 races overall.
Settling for sixth place in Saturday’s giant slalom, Shiffrin wasn’t going to be denied Sunday. Her first run was error-free on the slick course. Skiing last in the second run, Shiffrin heeded her coaches’ report to attack the course and go for it.
“I was so nervous this run. I have a rash on my face because I was so nervous. I don’t know why, maybe because of 82. I wanted to ski it well, and I did,” Shiffrin told FIS. “I hope someday I can ski like that again, because it was maybe the best thing I ever did in a GS.”
She has now won three of the six giant slaloms this season and stands in second place in the GS standings with 400 points, behind only Marta Bassino of Italy, whose fifth place on Sunday gave her 425 points in GS.
Extending her big lead in the World Cup overall standings with another 100-point win, Shiffrin improved to 1,115 points this season, which is 419 points ahead of second-place Petra Vlhova of Slovakia, 696.
Through the Zagreb slalom result, Shiffrin has raced in 15 of the 18 women’s events this season. She has won eight times along with a second place, fourth, fifth and three sixths. Shiffrin won only five times last season on her way to her fourth World Cup women’s overall title.
In Slovenia, stretched her prize money earnings to $484,431, close to the $437,575 she earned all last season on the way to 1,493 Cup points. This year’s second-place woman in prize earnings is Sofia Goggia of Italy, with $197,221.
Next chance for Shiffrin to break the all-time women’s victory record is Tuesday, Jan. 10 when the women are scheduled to race slalom at Flachau, Austria. Next weekend, the women stay in Austria for downhill and super giant slalom at St. Anton.
Post a comment as anonymous
Report
Watch this discussion.
(1) comment
Such a great skier and remarkable a accomplishment......yet we can only read about it and watch bits and pieces of the ski races all because the powers to be sold out to a fly by night obscure, over priced, poorly produced streaming site. Bring back Steve Porini !
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In