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

United States’ Breezy Johnson will get to the end space after finishing a ladies’s World Cup downhill in Val d’Isere, France.

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United States’ Paula Moltzan, second positioned, stands on podium after a ladies’s World Cup parallel big slalom in Lech/Zuers, Austria.

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United States’ Mikaela Shiffrin will get to the end space after finishing a ladies’s World Cup slalom in Semmering, Austria.

Gabriele Facciotti/Related Press

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

Shiffrin was liable 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 group 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 pleased with our group,” Shiffrin stated after putting third within the year-end night time slalom in Semmering, Austria, on Tuesday.

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

With a ladies’s report of 82 World Cup victories behind her, Vonn retired in February 2019 after profitable 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 received her second total 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 minimize brief following the dying of her father, Jeff Shiffrin, in early February and the outbreak of the coronavirus.

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

“I’m sort of overwhelmed however I’m actually excited. I’m actually fortunate to have a fantastic group 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 ultimate race weekend earlier than the Christmas break, Johnson was the following group member to seem 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 received by Vonn.

“I nonetheless will all the time 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 prepare, 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 group members have stepped ahead as nicely: O’Brien obtained a profession finest in GS in October and added her first top-10 end result 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 putting tenth in a super-G the following 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.

“These are athletes that I’ve watched snowboarding for years,” Shiffrin stated. “I grew up snowboarding with them. I raced with them for 15 or extra years. I do know that they’ll have success within the World Cup.”

Shiffrin has contributed three of the American group’s six podium outcomes this season, together with a win at a GS in Courchevel, France.

The double Olympic champion and three-time total champion wasn’t hiding her pleasure about seeing her teammates fulfilling their potential.

“There are all these totally different tales that cause them to this place the place they’re lastly having success,” Shiffrin stated. “I’m simply taking a look at it and I really feel so freakishly enthusiastic about it.”