The dominance of Mikaela Shiffrin goes beyond simple winning every slalom of the Olympic season. Her control over each race and winning by large margins as well.
An Evening Marked by Record-Extending Performance
The Alpine star from the United States earned a 105th record-broadening World Cup victory after a number of her primary challengers went out during the first run of a evening event on Tuesday.
Shiffrin increased her first-run lead and ended up 1.55 seconds ahead of Swiss skier Camille Rast and 1.71 seconds ahead of competitor from Germany Emma Aicher.
"The skier has triumphed in the first four slaloms of the season – and five straight including the final race of last season," observed analysts.
Overwhelming Leads of Success
All of her winning leads this season have topped a full second – with three of them more than 1.5 seconds: a 1.66-second lead in Levi, Finland; 1.23 seconds in Gurgl, Austria; and 1.57 seconds in Copper Mountain, Colorado before her latest performance in the French Alps.
Challengers Encounter Difficulty
Rivals scrambling to catch Shiffrin ran into difficulty.
- Lena Duerr, the German skier who was in third place after the first run, skied off the track early in her second trip down.
- Lara Colturi, the Italian-born skier who races for Albania, missed a gate toward the end of her initial run – halting a streak of three consecutive slalom podiums.
- Wendy Holdener achieved a seventh-place finish even with a incident at the end of her first run where she encountered a rut, was flipped into the air, and landed on her back.
Defending World Cup slalom champion Zrinka Ljutic and Olympic silver medalist Katharina Liensberger, the following two competitors, went out midway down the course.
This marks the third consecutive slalom that Ljutic has not completed.
Final Standings
Katharina Truppe of Austria finished fourth and American skier Paula Moltzan moved up from ninth to fifth with the fastest second run of the race.
A Legacy of Accomplishments
This win represented Shiffrin's 68th World Cup slalom victory. Her Games accolades include gold in slalom at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and gold in giant slalom four years later at the Pyeongchang Games. She didn’t medal at the 2022 Beijing Games.
The upcoming winter Olympics' women’s Alpine skiing events will be held in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – a venue where Shiffrin secured four medals in her four events at the 2021 world championships.
