EagleVail’s Mikaela Shiffrin captured her third World Cup victory of the season and the 34th of her career Tuesday in Courchevel, France, passing Bode Miller by moving into second place on the all-time wins list for Americans. Only Lindsey Vonn of Vail has more at 78.
Shiffrin claimed a giant slalom by 0.99 of a second and widened her lead in the World Cup overall standings over Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg, her closest pursuer. Shiffrin picked up 100 points for the win and Rebensburg reaped only 14 after finishing a disappointing 18th in her best discipline. Shiffrin, the defending overall winner, leads Rebensburg 621 points to 430.
Shiffrin now has wins this season in three different disciplines, having previously won a slalom Thanksgiving weekend at Killington, Vt., and a downhill later that week in Lake Louise, Alberta. In nine races this season, she has been on the podium six times and failed to crack the top five only once.
In Tuesday’s race, she overcame a tendency she sometimes has in GS to be too careful in her tactics.
“My biggest goal with my skiing is to try to ski my best and to push the limits of the sport,” Shiffrin told reporters after the race. “Today I felt like I was doing that. I was pushing my limits and that was maybe the thing I was most proud of, even more than the win.”
Shiffrin has won 26 slalom races in her career, and Tuesday marked the fifth GS win of her career. She earned the red bib for moving into the lead in the season GS standings. She also leads in the slalom and downhill standings.
“I’m definitely taking more risk (in GS),” Shiffrin said. “Today was a huge step for me. For sure, there was some scrappy turns and some mistakes, but the whole general mentality was aggressive. Thatap been hard for me, to get to a place where I felt confident doing that.”
Shiffrin took some time off for training and rest last week in Norway while the women’s tour was racing super-Gs in Val d’Isere, France.
“It was really nice for me to take a step back from everything, kind of take a step back from all the hype in Central Europe and get some training in,” Shiffrin said. “It was a well-needed rest as well.”
The women race a parallel slalom Wednesday before breaking for Christmas.
World Cup standings (top five)
- Mikaela Shiffrin, EagleVail, 621
- Viktoria Rebensburg, Germany, 430
- Tina Weirather, Liechtenstein, 374
- Michelle Gisin, Switzerland, 303
- Tessa Worley, France, 286
