LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland (March 15) - Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin (Eagle-Vail, CO) put a wrap on a spectacular slalom season, taking a dominant 1.44 second win in the season finale at Lenzerheide to hoist her second straight Audi FIS Alpine World Cup crystal globe. It was her ninth career win and fifth of the season. Universal Sports will air coverage at 4:00 p.m. EDT.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Mikaela Shiffrin (Eagle-Vail, CO), who celebrated her 19th birthday Thursday, won her fifth Audi FIS Alpine World Cup slalom of the season by a massive 1.44 second margin.
- The victory solidified her season-long dominance after she had already clinched the discipline title a week ago with a win in Are, Sweden.
- Shiffrin later shared the World Cup stage with teammate and fellow Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) who collected his career fifth giant slalom title with a dramatic win at the season finale.
- It was her career ninth World Cup slalom win, equaling the U.S. record in either gender, also held by Tamara McKinney and Phil Mahre. They were 24 when they reached nine wins.
- The victory also ties Shiffrin with Picabo Street for the third most World Cup victories in all disciplines by a U.S. woman, behind only Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO), who has 59, and McKinney (18).
- She is now the first non-European to win five World Cup slalom races in one season.
- She is also the first non-European and youngest woman to win the World Cup slalom title twice.
- The five victories helped boost her total slalom points to 638 points, topping Swede Frida Handsotter, who was also second in the race, by 150 points.
- Shiffrin will be back in the gate Sunday to close the World Cup season with giant slalom, where she is currently sixth in the standings.
QUOTES
Mikaela Shiffrin
I’m very proud. One of my goals this year was to hold onto the slalom globe and I did that today.
I’m really happy with the race today, especially the first run, and I’m looking forward to the next slalom race next year. I’m looking forward to Levi already.
It was a very difficult course set, and we don’t see that very much on the women’s side. I was actually excited about it because it was a little bit of a change. I just wanted to attack as well as I could. I was lucky to get bib one today because the snow got worse as the day went on. So we took advantage of that and in the second run I was just trying to ski as free as I could for the conditions.
I guess my secret is not letting people tell me I can’t do it. Everybody thinks that this is impossible; you can’t win a race by 1.4 anymore. You can’t win the Olympics at 18. People say you can’t a lot and I never listen to them.
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