US ski star Shiffrin dominates 1st World Cup slalom of Olympic season for career win 102

LEVI, Finland (AP) – Mikaela Shiffrin opened the Olympic slalom season in convincing style Saturday by dominating a World Cup race in Finnish Lapland for her record-extending 102nd career win.

The American star built on a commanding first-run lead of more than a second, clocked the fastest time again in the final run and won the race by 1.66 seconds from second-placed Lara Colturi.

“It’s for sure a good feeling, it was so nice to race today. I felt really strong on both runs,” said Shiffrin, adding she didn’t want to be too cautious in protecting her big lead.

“I was just feeling like: ‘Oh, don’t mess it up, like it would be embarrassing, kind of.’ But then, in the end, if you are pushing as hard as you can, you can’t mess it up.”

Colturi, an Italian-born prodigy competing for Albania, matched her career-best result. Colturi turned 19 on Saturday.

All-rounder Emma Aicher placed third, 2.59 behind, for her first podium in a tech race. The German, who turned 22 last Thursday, won a downhill and a super-G last March.

Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzan, who finished runner-up to Austrian winner Julia Scheib in the season-opening giant slalom three weeks ago, was 2.46 off the lead in 19th but improved to fourth place, which she shared with Aicher’s teammate Lena Duerr.

“I knew I needed to shift into another gear to find a lot of time. I’m super happy with my skiing second run, I felt like I was able to make some of my best turns,” said Moltzan, who had the second-fastest run time.

Shiffrin and Moltzan now rank 1-2 in the overall standings after two events; first-race winner Scheib does not compete in slaloms.

“Mikaela put on an absolute clinic on how to ski Levi. She continues to impress everyone with her skiing,” Moltzan added.

Slalom World Cup champion Zrinka Ljutic of Croatia was fourth after the opening run and dropped to sixth.

Shiffrin laid the foundation for her 65th slalom victory with an aggressive first run.

“This was the best run I could do, that was kind of perfect,” Shiffrin said after the opening run, calling it “a wonderful feeling” to replicate some of her best skiing from training.

“The whole summer prep I was focusing really a lot on giant slalom, so I didn’t get so many slalom days,” said the American, who placed fourth in the GS in October.

“But then when I did train slalom, it was really important to be maximum quality, maximum intensity every run.”

Recovered from a frightening crash in a GS a year ago, Shiffrin announced before the season she planned to reduce her schedule to slalom and GS, and maybe super-G, heading into the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in February.

Shiffrin won Olympic gold in slalom in 2014 and in GS in four years later.

Nine of Shiffrin’s record 102 World Cup wins have come in the traditional season-opening slalom in Lapland, where the winner is given a reindeer as a prize. Shiffrin said Saturday she had no name yet for the latest addition to her herd, adding she would reveal it on her social media channels.

No skier other than Shiffrin or Petra Vlhova of Slovakia has won the race in 14 editions since then overall champion Tina Maze triumphed in 2014.

Vlhova, who is the 2022 Olympic slalom champion, is still recovering from the lingering knee injury she sustained in January 2024.

A men’s slalom on the same hill is scheduled for Sunday. The women travel to Austria for another slalom next weekend.