ASPEN — First she noticed the green light on the leaderboard that indicated she had won the race, but the numbers that went with it took a while for Mikaela Shiffrin to comprehend after she made World Cup history in Saturday’s slalom.
First she saw the digits to the right of the decimal point and thought she’d won by only 0.07 of a second. There was a momentary pang of disappointment, because she had led after the first of two runs by the imposing margin of 1.38 seconds.
“I was like, ‘Oh, no, I barely got away with it. But I went as hard as I could!’ ” Shiffrin said. “Then I saw the 3.”
And that was so mind-boggling, the EagleVail resident didn’t know what to think.
In a result that thrilled the savvy Aspen crowd and shocked the ski world, Shiffrin’s winning margin of 3.07 seconds was the largest in a women’s slalom race in the history of the World Cup. The previous record of three seconds was set in 1968.
“I was really shocked,” Shiffrin said. “There’s a reason people don’t win by three seconds. Stars have to line up, and it probably won’t happen again.”
Even for a racer who has won an Olympic gold medal, two world championships gold medals and three World Cup slalom titles before the age of 21, it was a stunning achievement. It also was the first World Cup win for an American in Aspen since Olympic downhill champion Bill Johnson won in 1984, and the first win for an American women here since Tamara McKinney claimed a giant slalom in 1981.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a slalom won by three seconds,” McKinney said in the crowd before the record was announced. “That was phenomenal. That was just beautiful and spectacular.”
Shiffrin has always conducted herself with humility, but on this occasion it seemed as if she was humbled by the magnitude of her own accomplishment. She wasn’t quite sure what to think or say. Her theory was that her huge lead after the first run made the other racers believe she could not be caught.
“Honestly, I didn’t see any of the other girls ski the second run, but I might have been the only person on the hill that didn’t give up today,” Shiffrin said. “After the first run … if I was in their position I’d think there’s no way (to win). I shouldn’t presume to think that’s what they were thinking. … It’s just hard mentally to do it.
“I attacked (the second run) as hard as I possibly could. I think there was probably a lot of luck involved, and definitely not all me. My skis were perfect, my setup was perfect, the course reports were great.”
John Meyer: jmeyer@denverpost.com or
