Winter sports: Second super-G win in a row for Shiffrin

ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND— Mikaela Shiffrin won a World Cup super-G on Saturday, confirming the slalom great’s arrival as a pure speed racer and allround threat.

Shiffrin, who got her first career super-G win last weekend, was 0.28 seconds faster than Lara Gut-Behrami and 0.42 clear of third-placed Tina Weirather on the sun-soaked Engiadina course in St. Moritz.

Saturday’s race was just Shiffrin’s 10th super-G start in her nine seasons on the World Cup circuit, and the win days ago at Lake Louise, Alta., had been her first podium finish in the discipline.

“I did not expect to win today,” Shiffrin said, acknowledging the confidence boost she brought from Canada to Switzerland. “Something is working right now and I’m enjoying it. Coming into this race I thought, ‘Yeah, now I have no excuses.’ ”

The victory was a 47th on the World Cup tour for the 23-yearold American. Her fourth victory in eight races this season already gives her a runaway lead in defence of her overall World Cup title.

With a maximum 200 points from the two super-G races this season, Shiffrin can afford to avoid some speed races.

Shiffrin plans to skip the next World Cup stop — rescheduled downhill and super-G races on Dec. 18-19 at Val Gardena, Italy — to focus on preparing for her specialist technical events of slalom and giant slalom.

“Pick and choose which races seem to be appropriate,” she said, targeting her favoured races on Dec. 21-22 at Courchevel, France.

Shiffrin pointed to a little luck of the draw Saturday, getting start bib No. 12, which let her see tricky gates set by a Norway team coach that caught out earlier racers, including Olympic silver medallist Anna Veith.

“If you were off balance, (you had) no chance,” Shiffrin said. “My coaches did a great job to say exactly where I needed to be smart and where I could just go like a crazy woman.”

Olympic champion Ester Ledecka extended her run of disappointing World Cup super-G results, finishing 2.64 back in 29th place.

The St. Moritz meeting includes a parallel giant slalom event Sunday in the head-tohead racing format.

HARVEY 13TH: Alex Harvey struggled to find the rhythm needed to be successful in a rare 30-kilometre individual start cross-country skate-ski distance race on Saturday at the World Cup in Beitostolen, Norway.

The three-time Olympian from St-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Que. dug deep and grinded out a 13thplace finish with a time of one hour 11 minutes 43.3 seconds.

Norway’s Sjur Roethe took gold, finishing with a winning time of 1:09:53.5.

Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (1:10:28.7) and Russia’s Andrey Melnichenko (1:10:42.7) rounded out the medal podium.