Mikaela Shiffrin claimed her 85th Alpine World Cup victory after winning the first of two consecutive slaloms in Spindleruv Mlyn (Czech Republic). With today’s success, the American Alpine skier came just one victory away from Ingemar Stenmark’s absolute record for the number of victories in World Cup starts. Mikaela Shiffrin will be able to equalize tomorrow with the legendary Swede, who ended his career with 86 successes.
During the race today Mikaela Shiffrin did not leave a chance to her rivals, as she was the fastest in the two runs of the competition. Thus, with a total time of 1:33.85 min, she triumphed with an advance of 0.60 sec ahead of Lena Duerr (Germany). For Lena Duerr this is the best ranking of the season, in which so far she has had two third places from the slaloms in Zimmering (Austria) and Flachau (Austria).
Third on the podium was the two-time winner so far this season, Wendy Holdener (Switzerland), who was 1.31 secbehind Mikaela Shiffrin. Petra Vlhova (Slovakia) and the second American Paula Moltzan finished fourth and fifth, respectively, finishing 1.56 sec and 1.89 sec from the first place.
With his 11th victory in 27 races since the start of the season, Mikaela Shiffrin leads the overall World Cup standings with an asset of 1,617 points and an advantage of 671 over Petra Vlhova. Third with a deficit of 711 points is Lara Gut-Behrami (Switzerland), who did not start in Spindleruv Mlyn.
With 5 wins from eight slaloms since the beginning of the season, Mikaela Shiffrin is already touching the small crystal globe in the discipline, which she will be able to guarantee tomorrow. That will happen if she earns at least 25 more points than Wendy Holdener and 5 more than Petra Vlhova, who follow her by 175 points and 195 points, respectively, before the final three slaloms of the season.
The Women’s Alpine Skiing World Cup continues tomorrow with the second slalom in Spindleruv Mlyn. For the ladies, it will be the final World Cup race at the World Championships in Courchevel and Meribel, which kicks off on February 6 with the women’s alpine combined.
