Shiffrin sets records with 6th gold, 9th overall at world championships
CO RTIN A D’A MPEZZO, ITA LY » No woman came close to matching Mikaela Shiffrin on Monday. Not many men, either, for that matter.
The Vail native dominated the combined race at the world championships to such a degree that she pondered how she stacked up against the opposite gender.
And for once — with men and women racing on the same course on the same day in the super-G part of the race — there was a direct comparison.
Shiffrin’s time in the super-G leg was third best among the women and would have placed her slightly more than two seconds behind men’s halfway leader James Crawford of Canada — but ahead of American teammate Jared Goldberg, who had a wild run down the Olympia delle Tofane course.
“There’s a big difference between men and women skiing. But when we can get sort of close to that and on days like today with this perfect, smooth conditions and just full attack, then it’s cool to find a comparison,” Shiffrin said.
While the men and women raced on exactly the same super-G course, the slalom leg for the men was slightly more challenging. But the snow surface for both men and women in the slalom was the same — injected with water to the point where it resembled a sheet of sheer ice.
Shiffrin dug her sharp edges into the hard surface with apparent ease as she danced between the gates to post the fastest slalom leg in the women’s race — more than a half-second ahead of silver medalist Petra Vlhova.
In the end, Vlhova (0.86 seconds behind) and bronze medalist Michelle Gisin (0.89) were the only skiers within two seconds of Shiffrin’s combined time.
“Dominant” was the word that Tiger Shaw, the president and CEO of U.S. Ski and Snowboard, used to describe Shiffrin.
Super-G leader Federica Brignone lost her grip and fell at the third gate of the slalom. Two-time defending world champion Wendy Holdener also failed to finish the second leg.
Likewise in the men’s race, 2017 world champion Luca Aerni was among those who failed to finish the slalom leg.
Austria’s Marco Schwarz narrowly edged Alexis Pinturault for gold. Loic Meillard took bronze.
So where might Shiffrin have finished in the men’s race?
Well, it’s an inexact science, but Shiffrin required 45.05 seconds to clear the 57 turning gates of the women’s slalom course. Add in the three more turning gates on the men’s course, the equivalent of a 5.26% increase, and it translates to an extra 2.37 seconds.
That would have placed Shiffrin ninth overall in the men’s race.
Before injuries curtailed her career, Lindsey Vonn had campaigned for years for the right to race in downhill against men. She was one of the few female skiers to use longer men’s skis. Vonn wanted to race against the men at the World Cup stop in Lake Louise, Alberta, where she won 18 times. The course in Cortina, where Vonn won 12 times, might have sufficed, too.
As American downhiller Bryce Bennett noted, the Cortina course doesn’t have enough features on it to “separate” the men from the women, compared to more challenging tests in Kitzbühel, Austria, and Bormio.
“You can just arc as hard as you can,” Bennett said.
Shiffrin was charging so hard in the super-G that she nearly crashed into the finish banner.
“Everything just felt so nice,” Shiffrin said. “It was just maybe a couple spots where I felt like I was enjoying the turns too much and forgetting to get in my tuck. … I almost missed the finish.”
Having already collected a bronze in super-G last week, the victory gave Shiffrin an American-record nine career medals at worlds — one more than Vonn.
She also became the first skier -man or woman -- to win gold medals at five straight worlds.
In addition, Shiffrin set an American record with her sixth world championship title, breaking a tie with Ted Ligety, who retired last week. She has four golds in slalom and one in super-G from previous worlds and is among the main contenders in slalom and giant slalom later this week.