U.S. skiers step out of Mikaela Shiffrin’s shadow with strong results – The Denver Post

For the primary time since Lindsey Vonn’s retirement, the U.S. ladies’s ski staff is now not solely depending on Mikaela Shiffrin for World Cup success.

Shiffrin was chargeable for all 34 American podium outcomes on the ladies’s circuit up to now two seasons, however three months into the present marketing campaign, two staff members have scooped top-three outcomes as nicely.

Paula Moltzan completed runner-up in a parallel occasion in Austria in November, and Breezy Johnson added back-to-back third-place finishes in two downhills in France this month.

The season has additionally introduced a string of career-best outcomes for Nina O’Brien, Keely Cashman and AJ Harm.

“I’m actually enthusiastic about and happy with our staff,” Shiffrin stated after inserting third within the year-end evening slalom in Semmering, Austria, on Tuesday.

“Every part is constructing. It’s been a extremely very long time since we had this a lot depth inside our total ski staff. It’s actually cool to see that.”

With a ladies’s file of 82 World Cup victories behind her, Vonn retired in February 2019 after successful downhill bronze on the world championships, however her final World Cup podium got here on the finals of the earlier season, in March 2018.

That very same season Shiffrin gained her second general title whereas Alice McKennis Duran and Jacqueline Wiles additionally scored podium outcomes.

Since then, it has been all about Shiffrin.

She had 21 podiums, together with a record-breaking 17 wins, within the 2018/19 season, and 13 podiums the next marketing campaign, which was lower brief following the dying of her father, Jeff Shiffrin, in early February and the outbreak of the coronavirus.

This season Moltzan turned the primary staff member to step ahead, ending a career-best tenth within the season-opening large slalom in October earlier than incomes her first podium six weeks later.

“I’m type of overwhelmed however I’m actually excited. I’m actually fortunate to have an important staff to share it with,” stated Moltzan, who began racing on the identical Buck Hill in Minneapolis the place Vonn had her snowboarding roots.

Within the closing race weekend earlier than the Christmas break, Johnson was the subsequent staff member to look within the highlight, getting her first two profession podiums on two consecutive days.

The Jackson, Wyoming native improved one place from her earlier finest, when she completed fourth in a downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in February 2018 that was gained by Vonn.

“I nonetheless will at all times say that I’m actually bummed that I by no means shared (a podium) with Lindsey Vonn. I used to be shut one time,” stated Johnson, who has recovered from extreme accidents to each knees since that race in Germany.

“After the accidents, I’ve a lot power, I’ve a lot enjoyable.

“After we practice, I’m like: ‘What number of runs can we take, can we take six, can we take seven?’ I’ve a lot love for the game and realizing that it could possibly be taken away at any second in a really possible way, I don’t take something as a right.”

Different staff members have stepped ahead as nicely: O’Brien received a profession finest in GS in October and added her first top-10 outcome by ending ninth in Tuesday’s slalom; Cashman collected her first World Cup factors by coming seventeenth and sixteenth in two downhills in France earlier than inserting tenth in a super-G the subsequent day; and Harm scored her first factors within the parallel occasion the place Moltzan completed second earlier than ending 18th in a GS in France.