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Mikaela Shiffrin has little free time lately — in the course of the a part of the season the place she feels most fatigued — however she has seen the response to her ending second and third in her final two slaloms, sandwiched by a DNF in a mixed race.
“It’s actually humorous to suppose that this may be what most individuals would contemplate like a foul season or poor outcomes or one thing, however I’ve been on each [slalom] podiums [in 2020] and received a number of races [this season],” she mentioned Thursday after getting edged in back-to-back World Cup slaloms for the primary time since 2017. “It’s type of like, OK, I’ll take that. … If that is what a foul season [is], then I’m going to take that and be grateful and hold working as a result of the place I’m in is fairly unbelievable when you concentrate on it.”
That place is a well-recognized one, main the World Cup general standings comfortably (by 273 factors) because the season nears its midpoint. Shiffrin is on tempo to turn out to be the second girl to win 4 straight overalls, becoming a member of Austrian legend Annemarie Moser-Pröll.
Competitors continues this weekend. The ladies’s World Cup strikes to Sestriere, Italy, for an enormous slalom and parallel large slalom on Saturday (8:05 a.m. ET) and Sunday (5:45 a.m.) on Olympic Channel: Residence of Group USA and streaming on NBC Sports Gold.
It marks the fruits of a monthlong stretch of technical races — Shiffrin’s specialties — at six stops amongst 5 totally different international locations. The racing, the touring left her brief on coaching and resting, frequent for her on the flip of January given the World Cup calendar is comparable from yr to yr.
“It’s exhausting to completely discover that fireplace once I’m sort of beating my head towards the wall,” she mentioned.
A distinction this yr: the development of fellow 24-year-old Petra Vlhova, the Slovakian who received the final two World Cup slaloms. Vlhova beforehand beat Shiffrin in back-to-back slaloms on the finish of the 2016-17 season and starting of the 2017-18 season, however Shiffrin reasserted her dominance after ending fourth on the PyeongChang Olympics.
“It simply appears to me like [Vlhova] has been gaining increasingly more confidence in her snowboarding,” Shiffrin mentioned. “It’s taken her some time to get to the purpose the place she actually has the boldness to throw down in that sense.”
Nonetheless, Shiffrin leads the World Cup slalom standings — 80 factors — from successful the primary three slaloms this season. If Shiffrin finishes second within the ultimate 4 slaloms this winter, Vlhova must win all of them to take the title on a tiebreak.
Vlhova’s crew has been identified to movie different skiers’ coaching classes, a follow that isn’t unlawful within the sport (and customary when athletes from totally different nations prepare collectively). Again in November, Shiffrin expressed concern about being filmed throughout coaching by these whose athletes weren’t current, however she clarified Thursday that she was not referring to Vlhova’s crew in that interview.
“[Vlhova] has gotten her snowboarding to a very unbelievable level,” Shiffrin mentioned Thursday. “I completely respect that, and that’s it.”
After Sestriere comes three straight weekends of velocity races: downhills and super-Gs. Shiffrin plans to go to the primary set in Bulgaria subsequent weekend, then take it day-to-day from there. She’s trying ahead to the following technical occasions in Slovenia in mid-February, which she likened to “a brand new season.”
“I used to be snowboarding at one hundred pc of my capability [in recent races], figuring out that my capability was possibly not as excessive because it has been once I’ve come off a very good coaching session or a block of relaxation,” Shiffrin mentioned. “I really feel like I’m going to have the ability to elevate my stage of snowboarding once more, but it surely’s simply going to take slightly little bit of time.”
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