KILLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin has extended her record of World Cup wins to 90.
And she has done so in style.
The American two-time Olympic champion dominated a slalom Sunday, pleasing the home crowd by posting the fastest time in both runs on the Superstar course and beating her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova by 0.33 seconds.
“It’s amazing to do this, especially here, with the home crowd,” said Shiffrin, who is from Colorado but can almost consider Killington a hometown race because she honed her skills nearby at the Burke Mountain Academy as a teenager.
“It’s just such a good vibe and there’s a little extra intensity because we want this to be good for you guys to watch. I hope it was a good show,” she addressed the spectators in a course-side interview.
Shiffrin was put to the test by a frenetic second run from Vlhova, the Olympic champion who led the race by more than a second with only the American left in the start gate.
Shiffrin lost half of her first-run lead of 0.28 seconds at the first split, but she gradually gained time on Vlhova again.
After crossing the finish, Shiffrin briefly bent forward before getting up and showing the crowd a few fist pumps.
“It feels really good. It’s amazing to race in front of this crowd no matter what. Being in a position to win is something different, that’s really spectacular,” she said.
Shiffrin collected her 90 wins from 254 starts on the World Cup since her 2011 debut on the circuit two days before her 16th birthday.
She won her first race at a slalom in Sweden in December 2012 and set the record for most World Cup wins across genders when passing Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark’s mark of 86 in a race at the same resort in Sweden last March.
Sunday’s result marked her 55th win in slalom; no other skier, male or female, has ever won more than 46 races in a single discipline.
Vlhova had won the first slalom of the season in Finland two weeks ago and held a clear lead over Shiffrin in the second race the next day, but then she straddled a gate and handed victory to the American.
On Sunday, however, Vlhova made Shiffrin work hard for the win.
“I’m satisfied with my second run,” Vlhova said. “But first run, I didn’t go well. I lost in the first run, but the second run was a good show. Mikaela, she was stronger than me.”
