Mikaela Shiffrin on Sunday continued her dominance of the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup slalom in Killington, Vermont, with a record-setting victory over reigning overall champion Petra Vlhova.
US star Shiffrin, starting two-tenths of a second behind her Slovakian rival after the first leg, turned in a storming second run of 48.26 seconds.
Vlhova still had Shiffrin in her sights before a costly error saw her post the 14th-fastest time of the second run that was still good enough for second place, but 75-hundredths of a second behind the American.
Photo: AP
Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener, who missed the start of the season because she was recovering from broken bones in both hands after a fitness training accident, placed third.
“My mentality was super aggressive, that was how I really need to be for both runs,” Shiffrin said. “The second run, it wasn’t a perfect run, but most of it was quite strong and super-aggressive... I knew Petra would do the same. We both had a mistake, but I think hers was a bit bigger.”
With a 46th career slalom win, Shiffrin matched Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark’s single-discipline record set in giant slalom.
“I actually didn’t know the record,” she said. “I won’t say it’s not meaningful, it certainly is, but I’m trying not to focus on those numbers.”
“Any person would want to have those records ... wanting it doesn’t do anything for you to actually do the work or ski well enough to make that happen,” she added.
Shiffrin has now won all five World Cup slaloms held in Killington, which is not far from the Burke Mountain Academy where she once trained.
The return saw her turn the tables on Vlhova, who last week beat Shiffrin in two slaloms in Levi, Finland, to pull level with the American atop the overall standings.
Shiffrin, a three-time winner of the overall title, now leads again, 20 points in front of Vlhova.
Shiffrin said that she does not know where her ongoing rivalry with Vlhova — the two have combined to win 35 of the last 38 World Cup slalom races — will take her.
“Every single race is an enormous test,” she said. “The question is can I actually go faster? In my top speed, I don’t know if I can ski faster slalom than that.”
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