SHIFFRIN WON’T EASE INTO OVERALL CROWN
Skier will become World Cup overall winner
aspen» When Switzerland’s Lara Gut suffered a season-ending knee injury at the world championships last month, Mikaela Shiffrin’s pursuit of the World Cup overall title lost the drama typically associated with the battle for the most prestigious title in ski racing. Gut was the defending champion, and the two had been locked in a riveting duel, but in her absence the title became Shiffrin’s to lose.
Shiffrin will clinch it here Saturday because Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia is the only remaining racer with a mathematical chance to overtake Shiffrin, and Stuhec will surrender that by not racing Saturday’s slalom at the World Cup Finals.
Still, Shiffrin, 22, has been feeling pressure this week, even with the verdict ensured. She understands the magnitude of the moment: becoming the fifth American to win the overall, in the 50th year of the World Cup, 80 years after the first ski race in Aspen. She will become the first American to clinch the overall on home snow, and she wants to put on a perfor-
mance appropriate to the occasion. The EagleVail phenom warmed up for the task by winning both races last week in Squaw Valley, Calif.
“It would be a big flop if I were to do something crazy in these races, DNF (“did not finish”) twice and then, ‘Oh, well, at least I have the overall.’ We’re in Aspen, it’s my home state and I really want to put on a good show like I did in Squaw,” Shiffrin said. “Everybody is going to be firing on all cylinders here, and I feel like I have an obligation to put out my very best skiing.”
So she wants to win Saturday’s slalom, the discipline she has dominated since 2013. If she wins Saturday and wins the giant slalom Sunday, she will have 33 career victories, tying her with Bode Miller for second place on the all-time list of American World Cup race winners. Only Lindsey Vonn has won more (77). It would also tie her for eighth place on the all-time women’s list.
If Gut hadn’t been hurt, the overall might well have come down to Sunday’s final race, and Shiffrin seems to genuinely miss the challenge.
With Gut out, Shiffrin set a goal of finishing the season with more points than Gut scored in winning the overall last season (1,522), and she will; Shiffirin has 1,523 with more to come this weekend. She already has more points than the last three women’s overall winners.
“I don’t want to win anything because someone else crashed,” Shiffrin said. “I feel like I need to earn it somehow. The way that I feel that I can earn it is comparing the points that Lara accumulated last season. I’m trying to make the most points possible, and I’m pretty excited about that. That’s a different kind of a motivation.”