Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy) (AFP) – Mikaela Shiffrin is firm favourite to end her Olympic medal drought with gold glory after topping the times in the first run of Wednesday’s slalom at the Milan-Cortina Games. The most successful World Cup ski racer of all time, Shiffrin glided down a fiendish course in Cortina d’Ampezzo to establish a handy lead of 0.82 seconds over Germany’s Lena Duerr. Shiffrin’s rapid time of 47.13sec puts her in pole position to win her first Olympic title since the giant slalom in Pyeongchang in 2018, which is also her most recent medal at a Winter Games.
That would banish memories of both Shiffrin’s last Olympics in Beijing — where she failed to pick up a single medal from six races and didn’t even finish three — and her disappointing displays in the team combined and giant slalom in northern Italy. “It felt very good, it was really good skiing. I was super active, I felt very clean,” said Shiffrin. “I felt like I nailed it, with some question marks, but the time is good so I’ll take it and just give it a go on the second. There were some butterflies and nervous energy, but I have big energy today so just focusing on the gates between the start and the finish.”
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Shiffrin came to Cortina as a red-hot favourite to claim at least one gold due to her sensational form this season which has taken her all-time record of World Cup wins to 108. The 30-year-old has already won the slalom title in the World Cup after coming out on top in seven of this season’s races, finishing just 0.14sec behind winner Camille Rast in Kranjska Gora the one time she didn’t win. However, reigning world champion Rast has a job on her hands to rival Shiffrin in the decisive second run, which starts at 1230 GMT, as the Swiss was more than a second off the pace in fourth.
Gold for Shiffrin, who has an advantage of a second on everyone apart from Duerr, would be a happy ending to what has been a difficult Olympics for the US ski team. The Games were dominated by Lindsey Vonn’s horror crash and leg break in the downhill race which opened proceedings in Cortina. Breezy Johnson’s downhill gold has been the highlight for the Americans so far and she would have had at least another medal had Shiffrin not been 15th fastest in the slalom run of the team combined.
Reigning Olympic champion Petra Vlhova was way off the pace in her first individual slalom race in more than two years, the Slovak nearly three seconds behind Shiffrin. Vlhova has been grappling with a serious knee injury since January 2024 and only made her return to action in the team combined last week, failing to finish her slalom run.
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