Shiffrin Takes 81st World Cup Win
Mikaela Shiffrin scored her 81st win in the Zagreb, Croatia slalom, bringing her within one win to tie the record for the winningest woman alpine skier of all time. It was her fifth FIS World Cup win in a row and her victory crowned her the Snow Queen atop the Sljeme track in front of an enthusiastic night slalom crowd.
She'll have to wait a litle longer to get that tie and her 82nd World Cup win after Thursday's slalom in Zagreb was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions. In Wednesday's slalom, the snow was in extremely poor condition and a number of skiers struggled.
Wednesday was Shiffrin’s 51st World Cup slalom win, five of which have come from the infamous Snow Queen Trophy race in Zagreb. It was a warm day with tough snow conditions that caused the start to be lowered and the snow to rut up, but it didn’t seem to bother Shiffrin, who won the first run by .23 seconds. She took a measured amount of risk second run to take the overall win by .76 seconds.
Shiffrin mastered the spring-like conditions to win her women's record fifth World Cup race in the Croatian capital and first since 2019, finishing ahead of Slovakia's Petra Vlhova (+0.76s) and Sweden's Anna Swenn Larsson (+1.21s).
"I had so much fun skiing today and it was really my best skiing — both runs," Shiffrin said. "Nothing less than the best is going to work and I was taking all the risks I needed and then nailed it on the finish."
Shiffrin's winning streak includes victories in a super-G in St. Moritz before Christmas, two giant slaloms and a slalom in Semmering between Christmas and New Year, and now the first of the two Zagreb slaloms in unseasonably warm weather. The conditions resulted in the lowering of the start gate and soft snow underfoot, which caught out many of the top athletes in the first run on the steep pitch at the end of the course.
Shiffrin, skiing last among the top seeds in the first run with bib No. 7, avoided the bigger mistakes that her rivals had made and took a lead of 0.23 seconds over Swenn Larsson. The American then raised her game to a new level in the second leg, skiing a virtually flawless run to increase her advantage at every split time and cruise to victory.
"I'm really happy with how my skis felt in these conditions," Shiffrin said. "I think that was the most exciting thing of the day, that I felt so good skiing when it's a bit softer."
Olympic slalom champion Vlhova, winner of the last three Zagreb slaloms, was third after the first run and moved up a spot with a superb second run, but she is still searching for her first victory of the season.
"Of course I want to always win," Vlhova said. "But this year, Mikaela's really strong and if you want to beat her, you need to ski perfect in both runs."And especially in the first run I was not so perfect, I did a few mistakes."
As the penultimate racer in the second run, Swenn Larsson was comfortably ahead of Vlhova's leading times all the way but a mistake on the bottom third of the course cost her the chance to take the lead.
"In the end I tried to focus on what to do (given the conditions) and just fight all the way," Svenn Larsson said.
"It was actually the same when I took my first victory in Killington (in November) — I didn't feel well, I had mistakes, but still, fight to the finish and I did it as well today and now I'm on the podium so it's really nice."
Switzerland's Wendy Holdener moved up from sixth after the first run with an aggressive second run to finish fourth, missing the podium by 0.17 seconds.
Petra Vlhova of Slovakia was second in the Snow Queen Trophy slalom with Anna Swenn Larsson of Sweden third.
The result brings Shiffrin just one race shy of former U.S. Alpine Team teammate Lindsey Vonn’s record of 82 World Cup wins, which would tie Shiffrin with the winningest woman alpine skier of all time. Ingemar Stenmark’s World Cup record is also in her sights at 86 wins. With another race on the Sljeme slalom track tomorrow and five wins in the last five races, Shiffrin is on a roll. Only two women ski racers have won more races in a row than Shiffrin: Vreni Scheider of Switzerland won eight in the 1988-89 season and Germany’s Katja Seizinger won six in 1997.
Katie Hensien, Zoe Zimmermann, Nina O’Brien, Paula Moltzan, Lila Lapanja and Ava Sunshine did not qualify for a second run.
