World Championships: Mikaela Shiffrin secures Combined gold as FOURTEEN riders fail to finish

America’s Mikaela Shiffrin secured the primary Alpine Mixed World Championship gold of her profession with victory at Cortina on Monday, a day the place the course ended up dominating the dialog.

Shiffrin, who missed over a 12 months of Tremendous G racing earlier than taking bronze within the occasion final week, completed third within the first leg of the mixed, placing down a superb time.

A strong outing within the velocity occasion all the time places Shiffrin in dialog for the technical a part of this occasion and true to type the double-Olympic champion put down a blistering run within the slalom.

Shiffrin went down in 45.05, 0.52 forward of her technical rival Petra Vlhova of Slovakia, no-one else may get shut.

Just one different skier may break the 46 seconds mark, Michelle Gisin, as a plethora of skiers discovered themselves fighting the icy course.

No fewer than fourteen skiers failed to complete, notably amongst them Wendy Holdener and Federica Brignone.

The failure of Brignone, simply seconds in on the third gate that proved extraordinarily difficult all through the day, got here as an enormous shock after the Italian had dominated the Tremendous G.

“I used to be by no means targeted or proper for the race,” Brignone informed Eurosport within the blended zone.

“It was very powerful, I’m vastly dissatisfied. I attacked an excessive amount of and I made a misjudgement, I believed it might be simpler than it actually was. I used to be so proud of the way in which I skied this morning, near the slalom specialists, I knew I needed to assault however I attacked an excessive amount of.

Her compatriot Elena Curtoni completed second within the first half of the occasion however like the remainder of her fellow skiers she couldn’t deal with the slalom course and completed over two seconds behind Shiffrin.

Shiffrin, one of many few who can really decide up and management her velocity on icier circumstances was quoted by her federation saying “It’s ice, so I prefer it,” earlier than the race.

The victory is Shiffrin’s sixth gold medal on the World Championships, which places her forward of each Lindsey Vonn and the newly-retired Ted Ligety because the American with probably the most golds on the worlds.

“I’m glad that we determined to place this within the plan at this World Champs,” Shiffrin stated after the occasion. “It was a very nice day lovely climate, actually nice tracks each occasions.

“It was a very powerful slalom so actually glad I acquired down run

“If you take a look at that the highest finishers it’s type of the women who’re robust in each occasions so I assume it makes a variety of sense.

“It’s truthful for the entire area but it surely’s intimidating some instances to go down on the floor it’s a bit like taking place to battle so it’s important to be psyched.”

With the velocity occasions now completed for the ladies Shiffrin will flip her consideration to the Large Slalom and Slalom occasions, with this efficiency sending down a marker.

Generally it might really feel as if we take Mikaela Shiffrin without any consideration, such is her brilliance.

It isn’t being talked about sufficient that she didn’t ski in Tremendous G for over a 12 months.

Then she involves Cortina, takes the bronze medal within the Tremendous G race and finishes third once more within the velocity leg of the Alpine Mixed, it’s ridiculous.

Her Slalom was, as you’d anticipate, elegant, and Petra Vlhova can be involved ending over half a second off her nice rival.

With Shiffrin absent and injured this season Vlhova has been the queen of technical this season however there is no such thing as a doubt she goes to have her work reduce out for her for the remainder of this week.

As for the course it was clearly difficult, the variety of DNFs inform its personal story. The frustration amongst the piste was evident and as Eurosport commentators Nick Fellows and Finlay Mickels identified this race may function Alpine Mixed qualification for the Olympics.