Shiffrin And Schwarz Golden In Alpine Combined

Mikaela Shiffrin struck gold in the 2021 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, winning the super-G-slalom alpine combined event by an impressive margin. It is her second medal of the 2021 World Champs, her sixth career world title, and her ninth career World Championship medal.  

The super-G portion of the combined led the day in sunny Cortina d'Ampezzo with Shiffrin finishing in third place, just .06 seconds behind leader Federica Brignone of Italy. Shiffrin looked confident and fast in the event she had just collected a bronze medal in on Saturday, but slalom was where she knew she could shine.

The second run introduced a slalom course set into a sheet of ice after the race crew had injected and temperatures had dropped overnight, causing racer after racer to crash or ski out throughout the afternoon. While there was a total of 14 DNFs, Shiffrin—who had spent many of her formative years racing on Vermont’s icy surfaces—made the conditions look easy, building her lead by half a second or more at each split. She came down an impressive 2.35 seconds ahead after her slalom run, and only Petra Vlhova of Slovakia was able to get near her, finishing second and .86 seconds behind her. Michelle Gisin of Switzerland took bronze.

Shiffrin also earned three medals at the last edition of the World Championship, and with two under her belt already here, she is on pace to beat that mark.

“It was pretty fun!” said U.S. Alpine Ski Team athlete Shiffrin. “It was quite nice to ski today again. Beautiful weather and really nice in the super-G and again amazing in the slalom. It was tough conditions—like a real slalom—but I felt good and like I was pushing the whole time. It was nice when you feel like you’re skiing well and it works. Cool day”

Shiffrin had won slalom, giant slalom, and super-G medals at World Championships in the past, but this was her first alpine combined medal, having sat out the event in the past due to demanding World Champs schedules. Her gold also accrued her a slew of records, including collecting her sixth World Championship gold, passing Ted Ligety, and her ninth total World Championship medal, passing Lindsey Vonn.

“For sure the records are really nice,” said Shiffrin humbly. “It means something, but I don’t really know what to say about it. Today I was focusing on today. First: good super-G run; second: good slalom run. I wasn’t thinking about the record. I know that there’s something about the gold medals and something about total medals, but the first thing I have to do is make good turns on my slalom skis.”

Shiffrin also joins a small elite club of World Championships combined medalists. Tamara McKinney took home gold in 1989—32 years ago—while Julia Mancuso snagged silver in 2007.

In her first World Championships of her career, Bella Wright took home an impressive 14th place. “So much fun!” she exclaimed. “I love it here. I’m sad to be leaving after today, but some great memories here.”

She went on to describe what it’s like to be an athlete with Shiffrin on her team. “It’s amazing to be with her and to learn from her and today to be able to watch her on TV and see her ski some amazing super-G after like five days of super-G this year was so exciting and motivating,” said Wright. “She’s the greatest of all time in slalom, so that was perfect to watch.”

After winning three medals at the 2019 World Championships in Are (SWE), including the same silver medal in the combined, Vlhova was happy to get on the podium today. “It’s a good way to kick off the tech week and always a relief to earn the first medal. The difference today was my super-G, which put me in a good position for the slalom run.”

AJ Hurt also raced the slalom portion of the event after finishing 24th in the super-G, but struggled with the tough conditions and skied out. Breezy Johnson did not finish the super-G and is OK.

“The conditions were perfect today, it was really fun to ski. I was also happy to get another run on this super-G course.” said Shiffrin. “The slalom was a hard icy slope, not everyone had the best time with the conditions, but I just did what I could to keep building my speed despite slipping a little.”

In total, 14 racers were DNFs in the slalom run. Those that tried to attack the course, fell victim to the course set at the top. Those that played it safe were well off the pace of the slalom aces. Following the top three, there was a massive gap in the time with fourth-place finisher Elena Curtoni ending a hefty 2.35 seconds behind Shiffrin.

Adding to the challenge was the fact that today’s race was staged for the first time on newly renovated Druscie course, a new slope for both the men and women. The course hosted the slalom of the 1956 Olympics and after that fell out of rotation until these World Championships brought it back to life.

For the men Austrian Marco Schwarz earned his first career gold medal at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championship, topping the rest of the field in Alpine Combined today in Cortina. It was his third career World Championship medal and improved on his bronze medal finish two years ago in Are.

Marco Schwarz of Austria, the current best slalom skier in the world, took the gold—making Austria three-for-three in world titles so far in the 2021 World Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Alexis Pinturault—who was the favorite coming into the day—made a small error in the middle of the slalom and ended up second, just .04 seconds behind Schwarz. 

North American neighbor Jack Crawford of Canada was one of the best stories of the day, finishing in fourth place. He ran 32nd in the super-G portion and after the TV cameras had stopped rolling, came down to win the super-G by .08 seconds ahead of Pinturault. However, the speed specialist couldn’t quite keep up with the quick slalom gates and bumped down to fourth place overall.  Crawford also turned in a strong slalom run, but was edged for the last medal place by Meillard by 0.21 seconds. 

“I really had fun in the super-G,” said Schwarz after the race. “Then I knew I had to attack in the slalom. It doesn’t get much closer than 0.04 seconds against Alexis, so I’m just happy that I got those extra hundredths on my side.”

Schwarz’s gold medal was the third for the Austrian men at these World Championships in as many races.

Third place went to Switzerland’s Loic Meillard, who improved on his sixth-place finish to take the bronze medal 1.12 seconds behind. It was his first career World Championship medal.

Meillard’s third-place finish, put an end to a potential fairy tale day for James Crawford. Wearing bib #32, the Canadian topped the field in the super-G, holding a 0.08 lead over Pinturault going into the slalom.