Shiffrin takes slalom title, within 1 win of Vonn record
ZAGREB, CROATIA » Mikaela Shiffrin felt “really excited” Wednesday after winning the first women’s World Cup race of 2023.
And it wasn’t because she had just moved within one victory of Lindsey Vonn’s record.
“I skied better than I probably ever have,” Shiffrin said.
The defending overall champion dealt best with difficult conditions to dominate a floodlit slalom and raise her career tally to 81 World Cup wins. She could match the mark Thursday at another slalom on the same course.
American standout Vonn set the women’s record of 82 before retiring in 2019. The overall best is 86, by Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark.
“I’m happy, I’m incredibly happy. I mean, I had so much fun skiing today and it was really my best skiing both runs today,” said Shiffrin, who beat runner-up Petra Vlhová by 0.76 seconds, with the rest of the field finishing more than 1.20 off the pace.
The former overall champion of Slovakia had won the race on the outskirts of the Croatian capital the past three seasons. Vlhová’s rise to the top has motivated Shiffrin.
“I feel like I would not be here tonight with skiing like that, if it wasn’t for Petra pushing the limits in the last three years. She’s been so strong and it has encouraged me to keep working harder and harder and harder,” Shiffrin said. “Nothing less than the best is going to work. I was taking all the risk I needed and made it on the finish and that’s just an amazing feeling when it’s good enough.”
Shiffrin, the four-time overall champion, stretched her winning streak to five races, which included three different events: super-G, giant slalom, and slalom. Only two female racers have won more races in succession: Swiss skier Vreni Schneider won eight in 1988-89 and Germany’s Katja Seizinger won six in 1997. Shiffrin won back-to-back slaloms in Finland to start the 2022-23 season.
Kristoffersen gets first win with new team
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, GERMANY » For years, Henrik Kristoffersen and Marcel Hirscher fought fierce battles against each other in
the men’s Alpine skiing World Cup.
Wednesday, the Norwegian and the Austrian won a race together for the time since teaming up last summer.
Kristoffersen switched his equipment supplier in the offseason, joining the ski brand founded by his former rival and record-eight time overall champion Hirscher, who retired in 2019.
Kristoffersen dominated the field on the visibly deteriorating Gudiberg course, winning the race 1.22 seconds ahead of Manuel Feller, a former Austrian teammate of Hirscher. Olympic champion Clément Noël was 1.46 behind in third for his first podium result of the season after the Frenchman had failed to finish both of the previous slaloms.