KUEHTAI, Austria — Rediscovering her strength in slalom, Mikaela Shiffrin on Monday became the most successful U.S. skier in the discipline.
The teenager from EagleVail picked up her 10th career slalom win, breaking records set during the 1980s by Tamara McKinney and on the men’s side by Phil Mahre. Both had nine wins in ski racing’s most technically demanding event.
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” said Shiffrin, 19. “Somebody mentioned it and I was like, ‘Ha, that is very cool.’ I had no idea. But I am just mostly looking forward to enjoying being fast instead of just trying too hard. If you try too hard, you often don’t get what you want.”
Shiffrin certainly had not received what she wanted in slaloms so far this season.
After dominating the discipline the past two years while winning Olympic and world titles, Shiffrin struggled during the first two months of the new season.
After competing in three races without a podium finish, Shiffrin bounced back in impressive style Monday on the World Cup circuit. It was her 11th victory overall, after also triumphing in the season- opening GS in October.
Shiffrin posted the fastest time in both runs and finished in an aggregate 1 minute, 43.39 seconds.
Runner-up Sarka Strachova of the Czech Republic was 0.80 of a second behind for her first podium in five years. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland placed third, trailing by 0.92. The rest of the field was more than a second off Shiffrin’s winning time.
Tina Maze of Slovenia placed sixth, extending her lead in the overall standings.
“I am definitely satisfied,” Shiffrin said. “Especially the second run was really fun to ski. It was really one of my best runs I had all season, including training or anything.”
But she wasn’t taking anything for granted.
“Many other girls skied well too, so this is not necessarily the best projector of what the next races will be,” she said.
Shiffrin backtracked from her plan to compete in her maiden super-G in Val d’Isere, France, this month, and she used the two-week break in technical races to put in extra slalom training in Santa Caterina, Italy.
“We have been working on really getting back to that feeling I had last year when I had really good timing at each gate. I was just on it all the time,” Shiffrin said. “Figuring out what I need to do in the morning for warm-ups, so my legs are ready to go.”
Shiffrin also changed equipment. “Finding out a ski and a setup that works together and that suits my skiing,” she said.
