Lillehammer (Norway) (AFP) – Mikaela Shiffrin extended her overall World Cup lead with an imperious display to win the slalom at the World Cup finals in Lillehammer on Tuesday, although Emma Aicher pushed their title fight into the last race of the season. Shiffrin powered to her ninth slalom win of the campaign to take an 85-point advantage in the overall standings over Aicher into Wednesday’s closing giant slalom. A sixth title would see her match the record currently held by the great Annemarie Moser-Proell. It would be a feat which had been put into doubt during injury-hit campaigns in 2024 and 2025, when Laura Gut-Behrami and Federica Brignone respectively took advantage to seize overall glory.
“This is just a symbol of the work that my team has been putting in, and all the support I’ve had these years, especially the last three years, to get back to have the chance to be at a high level and to win a globe,” Shiffrin said after being presented with her ninth slalom season trophy. “After the injuries and everything, it took a big effort from my team, it’s totally something we did together.”
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German youngster Aicher finished third to keep her hopes alive, although she was pipped to second on the day by Wendy Holdener, denying her a potentially crucial 20 World Cup points. Aicher had cut Shiffrin’s overall lead to just 45 points over the weekend in the speed events, leaving the title up for grabs heading into the slalom and Wednesday’s giant slalom. But American star Shiffrin now only needs to finish in the top 15 in the giant slalom to add the overall globe to her slalom title, after notching her 110th career World Cup win.
She celebrated with her slalom globe, but her focus will be firmly on achieving her main goal on Wednesday. “I’m actually not confident at all, you saw today anything can happen,” Shiffrin said. “I never skied on this slope in GS, it looks not super easy. So, I have to have good tactics, a good mentality, to try to have some energy in the muscles, and then to give full gas, like big energy. But nothing is secure, we just breathe and see.”
Aicher has to win the giant slalom and hope Shiffrin slips up to have any chance. “It’s pretty fun, didn’t think I would be able to be on the podium again today,” said the 22-year-old. “The first run didn’t feel that good. The second run felt better.”
Shiffrin, who also won slalom gold at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, was in dominant form in the first run, taking a 1.10sec lead over Holdener to lay down the gauntlet to Aicher who was only fourth-quickest. Katharina Truppe, fourth in the season slalom standings, managed a second-run time of 59.68secs to put some pressure on the last few skiers. Aicher, who needed to finish fourth in the event of a Shiffrin win to take the title fight to Wednesday’s finale, produced a brilliant second run to secure at least that. But Switzerland’s Holdener edged out Aicher for second by just four hundredths of a second to deal a big blow to her hopes of a remarkable overall crown.
Shiffrin made no mistake when she took to the piste again, winning for the ninth time in 10 slalom races this season to take a big step towards regaining the big crystal globe, by a massive margin of 1.32secs.
© 2024 AFP
