Shi≠rin fifth after slowsecond run
aspen » Mikaela Shiffrin has faced the greatest pressure her sport can produce and come through time and again. She did it when she went to the 2013world championships as the favorite in slalom at age 17 and won a gold medal. She did it a year later at the Sochi Olympics.
She may be lacking some confidence in her slalom at the moment, but inability to handle pressure isn’t the reason she has had disappointing results in bothWorldCup slaloms this season, including Sunday’s fifth-place finish at AspenMountain.
“She’s dealt with pressure many times,” said her agent, former ski racer Kilian Albrecht. “In Sochi, everybody expected her to win, and she did.”
Having won the last two World Cup season slalom titles, Shiffrin was 11th in the season’s first slalom two weeks ago. She was the fastest Sunday on the first run but seemed to back off on the second, posting the 19th-fastest time.
“She didn’t push as hard as she normally does,” said Patrick Riml, alpine director of theU.S. SkiTeam. “I think she went out of the gate way better than the first run. She found the rhythm quicker and better. Then she caught an edge a little bit, and it seems to me she was holding back, putting the brakes on. She was not pushing, not confident like she is normally.”
Shiffrin was bidding to become the winningest American slalom skier. With nine career World Cup slalom wins, she is tied with two American legends, Phil Mahre and Tamara McKinney. Mahre won his ninth slalom at age 24, McKinney at 25.
Shiffrin, 19, has been putting more emphasis on giant slalom, and it paid off when shewon the season’s first GS last month in Austria. She hasn’t regained her touch for slalom, although it’s something that should come back with more slalom training.
“I just have a little bit of work to do with my slalom, honestly, and I knew that coming into this race,” Shiffrin said. “I’m trying to focus on GS and then slalom, knowing that I can win in both but I have to really bring the best out ofmyself. I’m really trying to get back to the skiingwhere I knowit’s good enough no matterwhat, and I can get into the gate with confidence.”
Shiffrin also is having trouble skiing in races the way she does in training.
“Everybody was pumping meup, trying to getme to ‘just do a training run, you’re fine, you don’t need to do anything special,’ but I don’t really believe that in myself,” Shiffrin said. “I think I had to pull something special out the second run in order to win. Some of those other girls did.”
If the crowd missed out on seeing Shiffrin win on home snow, teammateResi Stiegler of Jackson, Wyo., gave some of them goose bumps by finishing 11th. It has been a long tough road for the oft-injured Stiegler. “I think I almost cried before my run,” said Stiegler, 29. “I was replaying those sappy athlete movies — the one with DenzelWashington with the football players (“Remember the Titans”). I’ve been watching way too much football.”