The American Mikaela Shiffrin, queen of alpine skiing, won the slalom in Killington (United States) on Sunday, her 90th World Cup victory, a record, after another magnificent duel against her rival Petra Vlhova.
Shiffrin (28), five-time winner of the general classification of the World Cup, beat the Slovakian by 33/100. The Swiss Wendy Holdener took 3rd place at 1 sec 37. In front of her ecstatic public, and the day after a 3rd place in giant, the American has already won her second victory of the winter after a slalom in Levi ( Finland) two weeks ago.
Last season, she broke Swede Ingemar Stenmark’s record for victories on the world circuit (86), and continues to improve this mark by heading towards 100 victories at only 28 years old. “This track is incredible. The crowd helps me here, they are so noisy, I even hear them shouting at each intermediate time,” she greeted on NBC.
Shiffrin masters the Killington track to perfection, where she has won six of the seven World Cup slaloms, on the program since 2016. In Vermont, Shiffrin and Vlhova once again offered a magnificent duel, a new episode in a sporting rivalry which has lasted for more than six years.
Leading after the first round, Shiffrin was put under pressure by Vlhova’s excellent second round, but responded perfectly by setting the best time on the second course as well. Imperial, the two champions pushed the competition back by more than a second, a gulf.
“Her (Vlhova) skiing in Finland was incredible,” Shiffrin said. It inspired me, pushed me to do better. I tried to be more disciplined, more precise in my skiing. Year after year we pull ourselves up. Petra has a lot of pressure representing a small nation, she carries the weight of all the expectations alone. We have a lot of respect for each other.” Since March 2017, the two skiers have together occupied the first two ranks in slalom on 22 occasions, a discipline which they crush with 55 successes for the American and 20 for the Slovak, also winner of the big crystal globe in 2021.
In the general classification of the World Cup, which she crushed for the 5th time in the spring, Mikaela Shiffrin is already in the lead with 350 points, 84 more than Vlhova. Next week, the skiers will compete in two giants scheduled at Tremblant in Canada.