Mikaela Shiffrin has maintained her unbeaten streak in slalom with her third win of the season
LIENZ, Austria —
Mikaela Shiffrin maintained her unbeaten streak in slalom with her third win of the season on Sunday and matched Lindsey Vonn’s record for most women’s World Cup victories in a single discipline.
Shiffrin earned her 43rd career slalom win by dominating Sunday’s race, posting the fastest times in both runs to beat her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova by 0.61 seconds. Vonn had 43 downhill wins when she retired after the world championships last February.
Sunday’s victory left Shiffrin three short of the overall record for most wins in a discipline held by Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark, who won 46 giant slaloms between 1975-89.
However, the American three-time overall champion did set another record as she became the first skier, male or female, with a podium finish in 14 consecutive slalom races.
Shiffrin was 0.26 seconds faster than Vlhova in the opening run, and more than doubled her advantage in the final run, which was set by Vlhova’s coach, Livio Magoni.
Shiffrin and Vlhova have combined to win all 23 World Cup slaloms since January 2017, with the American taking 19 of them, including all six since January 2019.
The pair was far ahead of the rest of the field, with third-place Michelle Gisin of Switzerland 1.73 seconds behind.
Nina Haver-Loeseth of Norway was third after the opening run but dropped to 19th, while Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener was disqualified after straddling a gate in her second run.
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