Skiing: Shiffrin one off slalom mark with seven straight wins

ZAGREB, CROATIA— In the rhythmic style of a dancer, Mikaela Shiffrin approached yet another record on Saturday.

The American skier dominated the first women’s World Cup slalom of 2019 to match her personal-best winning streak in the discipline with seven straight victories.

Rivals were awed by her opening run, a flawless attack that gave her a lead of more than a second for the final run, while Shiffrin felt a familiar groove.

“When I am skiing my best, it feels something like a dance,” she said. “The rhythm is really something that I can feel helps me ski faster in every turn. There were a lot of turns that felt like this dance.”

The two-time overall champion built on her big first-run lead to beat Petra Vlhova of Slovakia by 1.25 on the icy Crveni Spust course. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland was 1.75 seconds behind in third.

At a night event in Austria on Tuesday, Shiffrin can match the all-time record of eight consecutive slalom wins, set by Vreni Schneider of Switzerland in 1989 and repeated by Janica Kostelic of Croatia in 2001.

“I am not counting the streak,” she said. “To be at this level and always pushing to be faster and stay at the top, for sure it is difficult to keep that form or to even get better.”

It was Shiffrin’s fourth triumph in the race on the outskirts of Croatian capital Zagreb, after winning it in 2013, ’15 and ’18.

“It’s a great atmosphere and it’s a really great track,” Shiffrin said about the Sljeme hill. “It’s the perfect track to be aggressive.”