Mikaela Shiffrin extended her record career haul to 97 World Cup victories when the American skier won the last slalom of the season at the Alpine World Cup finals Saturday.
Shiffrin was second fastest after the first run in her signature discipline, 0.11 seconds behind Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson, but stormed to her 60th slalom victory with a spectacular second run on a course set by Shiffrin’s coach Karin Harjo.
She won by 0.54 seconds over Mina Fuerst Holtmann of Norway, while Swenn Larsson dropped to third, 0.63 off the pace.
With her mother and coach Eileen watching on, Shiffrin, 29, was handed the crystal globe soon after, and she held it aloft while pumping her fist before kissing the trophy and acknowledging the crowd.
Shiffrin, who was out of action for six weeks after injuring a knee in January, had already clinched her eighth slalom globe last weekend in Are, Sweden. She has said the slalom will be her last race of the season, skipping Sunday’s giant slalom and next week’s speed events.
“It’s been a wild season, so I’m really happy to be here and see the final race of the season go well. I’m looking forward to the next season already,” Shiffrin said. “It’s a little bit hard to process it all. It makes me feel so invigorated and so alive. I’m trying to soak it all in.
“I never really focus too much on the numbers, but now I feel OK with them. It’s not pressure. It’s just an honor.”
The two-time Olympic champion sprained the MCL and tibiofibular ligament in her knee in a downhill crash Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, in January, when she was still recovering from a bone bruise she had sustained at the start of the season.
Shiffrin has won the season-ending slalom at the World Cup finals a record six times in her career, but not since 2019.
The next women’s race at the finals is the giant slalom on Sunday, when Swiss leader Lara Gut-Behrami starts with a 95-point lead over her Italian challenger Federica Brignone.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source Agencies
