Shiffrin ends super slalom season with another win
Eaglevail star seeks 13th victory overall in Sunday’s closing GS
Mikaela Shiffrin capped a spectacular slalom season with a flourish Saturday at the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden, dominating both runs to claim her seventh win in nine slaloms and her 12th of the season across all disciplines. Only four racers in history have won more in a season, and she can tie three of them with a win in giant slalom Sunday, the final day of the season.
Shiffrin overpowered the field in the first run, posting the fastest time by 0.72 of a second, and she closed even more emphatically in the second run to win by 1.58 seconds. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland was second and Frida Hansdotter of Sweden was third.
The win was special, but Shiffrin seemed more excited about how her skiing felt to her than her margin. It was an exhibition of clean, dynamic, aggressive slalom, Shiffrin at her best.
“My big focus was just trying to put two really good runs together,” Shiffrin told reporters at the finish. “The first run, it was really quite solid, and for sure it was great skiing, but I felt like I had something else, like another level I could push. In the second run, I really did that, I skied it the way I imagined it should be skied. I was really pushing every single gate.
“It was really special to feel that when I was skiing, and special to go through the finish and feel like it was really good. Then to see that my time was also reflective of that, that moment was so incredible, it’s hard to describe how that feels.”
The record for most wins in a season is held by Vreni Schneider of Switzerland, who claimed 14 in 1989. Three racers won 13 — Marcel Hirscher of Austria (2018), Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden (1979) and Hermann Maier of Austria (2001). Shiffrin is tied at 12 with Vail’s Lindsey Vonn (2012), and she could tie those in second with a win Sunday. Hirscher can tie Schneider’s record with a victory in Sunday’s men’s slalom.
Shiffrin, who turned 23 on Tuesday, now has 43 wins, half as many as Ingemar Stenmark’s all-time record of 86, a mark for which Vonn is in hot pursuit. Vonn posted her 82nd win Wednesday. Shiffrin is fifth in victories on the all-time women’s list and 10th on the list for both genders.
After the race Shiffrin received the crystal globe that goes to the season slalom winner. Whatever happens Sunday, she will receive her second overall globe.
“I wasn’t thinking about the 43rd win or even the slalom globe,” Shiffrin said. “I really wanted to make this day worth it, so that was great.”