Mikaela Shiffrin: American skier claims 98th World Cup win with success in Finland
American Mikaela Shiffrin scored a record 98th World Cup victory in the first slalom of the Finnish ski season.
The two-time Olympic champion led Levi’s opening run by 0.60 seconds and beat Austria’s Katharina Liensberger by 0.79 seconds in overcast conditions.
Lena Duerr of Germany finished third, 0.83 seconds behind the winner.
“I’m really happy to start the slalom season in an amazing way,” said the 29-year-old Shiffrin.
“It was a little bumpy[at the time]. I would get twisted at times, but then I kept fighting.”
She acknowledged that “it wasn’t a perfect rhythm,” but Shiffrin was pleased with her performance “under not easy conditions.”
She won both slalom events at the end of last season and clinched her eighth World Cup season title after injuring her knee in a downhill accident in January.
Shiffrin also took the lead in the season-opening giant slalom in Austria three weeks ago, but she struggled in the second race and finished fifth.
She will return to competition on Saturday, November 23, for another slalom race in Gurgel, Austria, before competing in the United States and Canada for three consecutive weekends.
