Shiffrin is golden in her 4th downhill
LAKE LOUISE, Alberta — U.S. slalom star Mikaela Shiffrin raced to her first World Cup downhill victory Saturday at Lake Louise.
Racing in her fourth career downhill, the 22-year-old Olympic and world slalom champion finished in 1 minute, 27.55 seconds to edge Germany’s Viktoria Rebensberg by 0.13 seconds.
“The biggest thing is I’m learning about the mentality to ski well in downhill and ski the way that I want to,” said Shiffrin, who was third Friday in the opening downhill.
The defending World Cup overall champion won a slalom last week in Vermont. She extended her overall lead over Rebensburg to 149 points. Rebensburg won the first two World Cup giant slalom races of the season.
American Lindsey Vonn was 12th a day after crashing in the downhill opener.
“I think I had a hard time trusting my knee today,” said Vonn, an 18-time winner at Lake Louise. “It’s definitely pretty swollen. I’ll go ice it now and hopefully it settles down a little bit more.”
In other winter sports news:
• Aksel Lund Svindal started first, and the hard-charging Norwegian put down such a blistering run that no one could catch him as he captured the World Cup men’s downhill race at Beaver Creek, Colo. Svindal took a calculated risk by picking the No. 1 spot the night before, believing the snow conditions might hold up better. He finished in a time of 1 minute, 40.46 seconds to edge Switzerland’s Beat Feuz by 0.15 seconds. Thomas Dressen finished third to give Germany its first World Cup men’s downhill podium spot since 2004.