Mikaela Shiffrin has ruled out racing at the downhill of the Alpine Skiing World Championships in Courchevel & Meribel, France, sticking to her previously announced four-race schedule. The American inspected the track before the opening downhill practice, just to look at the layout ahead of Wednesday’s Super-G race.
Defending champion Mikaela Shiffrin failed in the combination yesterday after falling just meters before the finish of the second run, missing a gate.
After the super-G, Mikaela Shiffrin also plans to ski her preferred events of giant slalom and slalom at the end of next week. Схе had left open a small possibility that she would race downhill but now has decided not to.
World Cup downhill leader Sofia Goggia led the practice session, ahead of Italian team-mate Elena Curtoni by 0.26 sec and Slovenia’s two-time world champion Ilka Stuhec by 0.44 sec.
“The time doesn’t reflect how it felt, because on the top part, which is full of bumps, I was a bit wide in a few areas. The same thing midway down. Clearly, it’s a course that needs to be dissected well. There needs to be the right mix of intensity and tactics”, said Sofia Goggia. “Fortunately there are two more training sessions before Saturday’s race, split up by the super-G. I’ve got a lot to study and visualize over these next few days”, added she.
