Steel-edged Shiffrin shows mettle again
ACOUGHING Mikaela Shiffrin snapped up a record fourth consecutive world slalom title on Saturday, giving a glimpse of the steel-edged approach that has propelled her into the spotlight as one of the world’s best alpine skiers.
The American raced with a “small lung infection” that saw her struggle to breathe at times, but reality struck for the second run after she’d come in third fastest in the first leg.
“I wasn’t nervous today at all, I just wasn’t feeling good all day apart from the 60 seconds that mattered,” Shiffrin said of the second run which she blitzed in uncompromising style.
“I rea lly felt like I had to lea n on my coaches and my team to help me find t he energ y for these 60 seconds.
“Me and my team were able to concentrate on our true task and the reason we’re here. The skiing that I did was the best I could do, sick or healthy.
“I don’t know about the best, but it’s one of the sweetest,” she said of the victory, which followed gold in last week’s super-G and bronze in the giant slalom.
Sweden’s Anna Swenn-Larsson took silver and newly-crowned giant slalom champion Petra Vlhova of Slovakia claimed bronze.
Shiffrin finds herself firmly in the spotlight after the retirement of teammate Lindsey Vonn and amid high expectations that she will continue her heady progress and smash all records ahead of her, notably Vonn’s female record of 82 World Cup wins and overall record of 20 crystal globes.
It is easy to forget t hat Shif f rin is still only 23 years old, hav ing remarkably won her first world slalom gold in Schladming in 2013 at just 17, t wo years after her World Cup debut.
The statistics are truly incredible. She went on to win two more world slalom titles (2015, 2017) as well the 2014 Olympic slalom title before claiming giant slalom gold and combined silver in Pyeongchang last year.
Shif f r in, t he t wo-time defending overa ll champion, has a lready notched up 56 wins i n the World Cup, mainly in t he sla lom (38) and giant sla lom (nine), but a lso combined (one), parallel sla lom (four), downhill (one) and super-G (t hree). It makes her t he only sk ier, male or female, to have won in a ll si x FIS disciplines.
Her victory in the Semmering slalom in December also saw her become the first alpine skier to take 15 World Cup wins in a single calendar year. Her double in Maribor, the final World Cup event before Are, saw her move to just one win short of Vreni Schneider’s all-time record of 14 victories in a World Cup campaign.
Ingemar Stenmark, the ex-Swedish racer who holds the record of World Cup victories, at 86, is convinced Shiffrin will “win 100 or more”.
Dehumanising stats
Astonishing figures, and seemingly somewhat lost on Shiffrin herself, the racer arguing that statistics and numbers “dehumanise the sport and what every athlete is trying to achieve”.
“My goal has never been to break records for most World Cup wins, points or most medals at world champs,” she maintained, focused more aesthetically on laying the perfect turn.
That comment was one of many made in response to questioning by Vonn and ex-US skier-turned-TV pundit Bode Miller over Shiffrin’s decision to skip the combined and downhill at the Are worlds.
Shiffrin, who donned her first skis at the age of three in Vail, Colorado, where she grew up, said simply that she wanted to focus on further honing her skills in the more technically challenging slalom and giant slalom.
There is no doubt Shiffrin cuts a much different figure to Vonn, who was more outgoing and much more at ease in the spotlight.
“My big goal is not to be dramatic but to be in the start gate ready to win, but maybe becoming more of a personality that people want to see,” Shiffrin grudgingly admitted.
Unlike Vonn, Shiffrin has no desire to race against men.
“I would not like to try,” she said. “I love to train with the men. It’s super-cool and it’s helping us to push our own skiing.
“But the strength the men put into their runs is more than most girls are able to do . . . we don’t have the same literal physical strength. The best guys are on a different planet.”