Win 77 For Shiffrin, Brathen Tops Alta Badia GS

After coming fourth in Saturday's downhill, Mikaela Shiffrin won Sunday's super-G. American superstar Mikaela Shiffrin doesn't often fly under the radar, but that's exactly what she did in Sunday's super-G in the Swiss resort of St. Moritz en route to her 77th World Cup win.It was another bluebird day on the hill with the sun shining down at the finish for the speed racers as they close out their speed series in St. Moritz.

With all the weekend attention on the extraordinary exploits of Italy's Sofia Goggia, Shiffrin quietly recorded top-six finishes in both downhill races before mastering a technical super-G course that suited her all-discipline skills. On a course with a top section more reminiscent of a giant slalom, Shiffrin skied a risky, aggressive run that paid off as she finished 0.12 seconds ahead of Italy's Elena Curtoni, with France's Romane Miradoli claiming third.

"That was the best run I could possibly have," said Shiffrin, who credited skiing both downhill races on Friday and Saturday with helping her prepare for her first super-G of the season.

"I don't know if it felt perfect, but what I've learned over the years in super-G is that you can't really do it perfect," she said.

"You have to push so hard that maybe there's going to be one mistake or one spot where you almost don't make it, and that's how my run was."

With the victory, her fifth in super-G and first in the discipline since January 2020, Shiffrin moved to within five victories of former teammate Lindsey Vonn's women's record of 82 World Cup wins. It was Shiffrin's third win of the season after her double victory in the Levi slaloms last month, and the podium was her fifth in super-G in St. Moritz alone, representing half of her 10 career World Cup podiums in the discipline.

Skiing two racers after Shiffrin, Curtoni was close to the leading time throughout her run but a mistake on the final jump might have cost her a second victory of the weekend, following her triumph in Friday's sprint downhill.

"I knew I needed a lot of tactics and technique but I also needed to push," Curtoni said in describing how she approached the course.

"I think I've tried in the best way even though the lines were not perfect on the steep and the last jump was sketchy."

Third-placed Miradoli, meanwhile, salvaged a podium out of an otherwise disappointing weekend that saw her record a DNF and 29th place in the two downhill races.

"It was so difficult after the last two days," she said. "I just turned the page, I tried to forget it and start again and full pleasure today."

Switzerland's two-time Olympic Alpine combined champion Michelle Gisin showed her all-around skills to finish fourth in the town where she was born, while Goggia came fifth despite again skiing with a heavily strapped glove on her broken left hand.

The technical top section didn't suit Goggia or fellow speed specialist Corrine Suter, the Swiss Olympic downhill champion who won the only other super-G held so far this season in Lake Louise. Suter made a mistake early in her run and finished 15th.

The women's Audi FIS World Cup tour will take a break over Christmas before resuming with two giant slaloms and one slalom race in the Austrian resort of Semmering from 27-29 December, as Shiffrin resumes her chase for the all-time record.

For the men, seven days after winning the slalom in Val d'Isère, Norway's Lucas Braathen wasn't ready to step off the top of the podium. There was a large crowd at the venue as Val Gardena celebrated its 100th World Cup anniversary race at the venue. Plus the weather was a significant improvement with beautiful blue skies overhead and a light dusting of snow on the trees, making for a picture-perfect ski race. 

"Winning is like a drug, you just need more of it," the 22-year-old Braathen said after claiming victory in the Alta Badia giant slalom on Sunday by just two hundredths of a second over teammate Henrik Kristoffersen.

In third place after the first run, Braathen overcame some mistakes in the mid-section of his second run to hold the green light from top to bottom, and then watched as Kristoffersen and first-run leader Zan Kranjec of Slovenia couldn't beat his time. Kranjec fell to fifth, allowing Swiss superstar Marco Odermatt to sneak onto the podium in third and gain 60 valuable points in his quest for the overall World Cup crystal globe. But the day belonged to Braathen, who has dreamed of winning on the famous Gran Risa piste since childhood.

"It's incredible," he said. "Growing up, watching Alta Badia as a kid, it's one of the favourites, for sure, it's arguably the coolest giant slalom slope in the world.

"I can't believe I'm victorious here. It's unbelievable, I'm going to remember this day forever."

In dethroning Odermatt and besting Kristoffersen, Braathen joined those two as the only men to have won a World Cup giant slalom race in the last two seasons. He also joined Kristoffersen and France's Alexis Pinturault as the only active male skiers to win a World Cup slalom and giant slalom race in the same season.  Kristoffersen, who has achieved that feat three times, vented his frustration in the finish area after just falling short but was more philosophical after the race.

"Of course when you are two-hundredths behind you are allowed to be frustrated," he said. "This is racing, we all want to win."

A gruelling week of downhill skiing in Val Gardena seemed to have caught up with Odermatt as a tired-looking first run saw him languishing in ninth place, 1.42 seconds behind Kranjec. In recovering to post a strong second run and finish third, he became the third man to reach 11 consecutive World Cup giant slalom podiums after ski racing legends Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden (22 straight) and Marcel Hirscher of Austria (18).

"I wasn't sure if this (podium) will happen today again after the first run," said Odermatt, who had won the last three World Cup giant slaloms dating back to last season.

"It was difficult for me to find the right speed in the first run even if I had the perfect slope and in the second run, even if the slope was way more difficult — dark, bumpy — I somehow managed to always put the ski down to the finish. "Today (showed) once again that the Gran Risa is the hardest GS in the world."

Away from the podium, Andorra's Joan Verdu posted the fastest time of the second run to record a career-best finish of 12th, bettering his only previous top 30 result at World Cup level of 17th in a giant slalom in Kranjska Gora last March. Skiing third in the second leg, Verdu took advantage of a clean track to take the lead, and then watched as the next 16 skiers failed to dislodge him despite some of them starting with a first-run advantage over him of nearly two seconds.

"It was nowhere near perfect (on Sunday), so it's possible to ski a lot faster for sure," he said.

The  U.S. Alpine Team men’s speed team posted a strong team result Saturday in the Val Gardena downhill. Travis Ganong took seventh place, tying with Swiss skier Marco Odermatt. Jared Goldberg nabbed ninth place, and Sam Morse took home 15th.

“The skiing was really fun," said Ganong. "It's such a fun track and the skiing was good."

Teammate Goldberg also walked away with a positive result. “I knew there were a couple places where I made some mistakes but I brought a lot more intensity today with more of that racers edge and was happy to see a decent place,” said Goldberg. Bryce Bennett and Ryan Cochran-Siegle also placed in the top 30. Bennett was 23rd and Cochran-Siegle was 25th place.