Mikaela Shiffrin doesn’t just win every slalom of the Olympic season. She dominates every race and also wins by large margins.
The American ski standout claimed a record-extending 105th World Cup victory after several of her top challengers were eliminated during the opening stage of a night race on Tuesday.
Shiffrin extended her lead in the first run, finishing 1.55 seconds ahead of Swiss skier Camille Rast and 1.71 ahead of German racer Emma Aicher.
Shiffrin has now won the first four slaloms of the season – and five consecutive slaloms, including the final race of last season.
All her winning margins this season were more than a full second – and three of them were more than 1.5 seconds: 1.66 in Levi, Finland; 1.23 in Gurgl, Austria; and 1.57 in Copper Mountain, Colorado for her final performance in the French Alps.
Rivals rushing to capture Shiffrin ran into trouble.
Lena Duerr, the German who was third after the first run, went off course early in her second trip down.
Lara Colturi, the Italian-born skier racing for Albania, straddled a fence near the end of her opening run, ending a streak of three consecutive slalom podiums.
Wendy Holdener finished in seventh place despite an accident at the end of her first run.
Holdener punched a hole in the finish area, was thrown into the air and landed on her back. After grimacing in pain for a few moments, she stood up and walked away. It was not immediately clear if she was injured, but she took part in the second run.
Defending World Cup slalom champion Zrinka Ljutic and Olympic silver medalist Katharina Liensberger, the next two starters, retired at the halfway point.
It is the third slalom in a row that Ljutic has not completed.
Austria’s Katharina Truppe finished fourth and American skier Paula Moltzan moved from ninth to fifth with the fastest second run.
Shiffrin earned her 68th World Cup slalom victory. She also won gold in the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and four years later gold in the giant slalom at the Pyeongchang Games. Shiffrin did not medal at the 2022 Beijing Games.
Women’s Alpine Skiing at the Winter Olympics will be held in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – where Shiffrin won four medals in her four events at the 2021 World Championships and where Lindsey Vonn holds the record of 12 World Cup victories.
Vonn, who won a downhill last week at the age of 41, no longer competes in slalom. This weekend she will be back in action for a downhill and a super-G in nearby Val d’Isère.
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