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Mikaela Shiffrin isn’t just winning every slalom of the Olympic season. She’s dominating each race and winning by large margins.
The American skiing standout claimed a record-extending 105th World Cup victory after several of her top challengers went out during the opening run of a night race Tuesday in Courcheval, France.
Shiffrin added to her first-run lead and finished in one minute 42.50 seconds, 1.55 ahead of Swiss skier Camille Rast and 1.71 ahead of German racer Emma Aicher.
Shiffrin has now won the opening four slaloms of the season, and five straight including the final race of last season.
Rast and Aicher moved up to third and fourth in the overall standings, respectively. Shiffrin leads the overall with 558 points, followed by Alice Robinson (394), Rast (343) and Aicher (319).
Laurence St-Germain of St.-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Que., moved up a spot in Tuesday’s second run, placing 13th for top Canadian honours, 3.97 seconds behind Shiffrin. Amelia Smart of Invermere, B.C. was 23rd of 24 finishers.
All Shiffrin’s margins of victory this season have topped a full second, and three of them more than 1.5 seconds: 1.66 in Levi Finland; 1.23 in Gurgl, Austria; and 1.57 in Copper Mountain, Colorado before her latest performance in the French Alps.
Do the math and the average margin is 1.5025 seconds.
“I’m just pushing. I’m not asking questions. Sometimes you just got to take it and roll with it,” Shiffrin said. “Lock in this feeling.”
Rivals ran into difficulty
Lena Duerr, the German who stood third after the first run, went off course early in her second trip down.
Lara Colturi, the Italian-born skier who races for Albania, straddled a gate toward the end of her opening run, ending a streak of three consecutive slalom podiums.
Mikaela Shiffrin won her fourth consecutive World Cup slalom race in Courchevel, France.
Holdener flips, lands on back
Wendy Holdener managed a seventh-place finish despite a mishap at the end of her first run.
Holdener hit a hole in the finish area, got flipped up into the air and landed on her back. After grimacing in pain for a few moments, she got up and walked away. It wasn’t immediately clear if she was injured but she competed in the second run.
Defending World Cup slalom champion Zrinka Ljutic and Olympic silver medalist Katharina Liensberger, the next two starters, went out midway down.
It’s the third straight slalom that Ljutic has failed to finish.
Laurence St-Germain of Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, Que., finished in 13th place at the FIS Alpine World Cup slalom event in Courchevel, France.
Katharina Truppe of Austria finished fourth and American skier Paula Moltzan moved up from ninth to fifth with the fastest second run.
Shiffrin earned her 68th World Cup slalom win. She also won gold in slalom at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, then took gold in giant slalom four years later at the Pyeongchang Games.
But Shiffrin didn’t medal at the 2022 Beijing Games.
Women’s alpine skiing at the Feb. 6-22 Olympics will be held in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, where Shiffrin won four medals in her four events at the 2021 world championships and where Lindsey Vonn holds the record of 12 World Cup victories.
Vonn, who won a downhill last week at age 41, no longer competes in slalom.
Vonn will be back in action this weekend for a downhill and a super-G in nearby Val d’Isere.
Watch the final run from the FIS World Cup slalom event in Courchevel, France.
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