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SCHLADMING, Austria (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin impressed with a come-from-behind win in an evening race Tuesday to ship a powerful sign to her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova within the final girls’s World Cup slalom earlier than the Beijing Olympics.
Racing on the difficult Planai course, the American improved from fifth place, posting the quickest time with an all-attacking run to beat first-run chief Vlhova by 0.15 seconds.
Vlhova has been dominating girls’s slalom this season, successful 5 of the seven races and locking up the season title with two races to spare.
However Shiffrin was again to her greatest Tuesday, two days after failing to complete the earlier slalom.
“It’s such a privilege to race on this slope and all I wished to do right this moment was earn that, like deserve it,” stated Shiffrin, who referred to as the Planai “an iconic hill.”
The American cried and buried her face on an commercial banner within the end space after her main time nonetheless stood in any case 4 racers after her had completed.
“Final time I skied slalom in Schladming was world champs, additionally emotional,” stated the American, referring to the championships in 2013, when she received her first world title as a 17-year-old.
Tuesday’s victory marked Shiffrin’s forty seventh profession slalom win, making her the primary skier in World Cup historical past to win that many races in a single self-discipline. She beforehand shared one of the best mark with Swedish nice Ingemar Stenmark, who received 46 large slalom within the Nineteen Seventies and 80s.
“It’s going to take a short while to sink in. It’s been a few years of labor to get to that quantity. Tonight I simply need to take pleasure in how I skied the second run,” Shiffrin stated.
“It’s simply fairly particular to be sitting right here now. It feels prefer it didn’t occur,” stated Shiffrin, who stretched her lead within the total standings over Vlhova to 55 factors.
Her win didn’t forestall Vlhova from securing the season title within the self-discipline.
The Slovakian leads Shiffrin by 220 factors with simply two extra World Cup slaloms scheduled after the Olympics.
“To win the globe in the course of January, that’s superb,” stated Vlhova, who’s the defending total champion however has solely competed in slaloms and large slaloms up to now this season.
“It was a primary purpose for us to win the small globe for slalom. We made it and that’s one thing enormous,” she stated.
Vlhova received the slalom globe as soon as earlier than, in 2020, after Shiffrin had received it six occasions in seven years.
“Any time you handle to be just a little bit quicker than Petra, that’s an unbelievable job,” Shiffrin stated. “She is so robust, she is making no errors. She is snowboarding slalom the way in which it’s meant to be skied. It’s actually particular to observe that.”
The title went to Katharina Liensberger final season. On Tuesday, the Austrian was 0.79 behind in eighth after the primary run and finally completed twenty first after practically snowboarding out on the finish of her second run.
Germany’s Lena Dürr completed 0.93 behind in third for her third podium results of the season.
Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzan was in sixth place after the opening run however straddled a gate in her second. The American has been snowboarding with the pole taped to her glove since fracturing her left wrist.
Canada’s Ali Nullmeyer and Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener, who shared the third spot after the opening run, each failed to complete their last runs.
Anna Swenn-Larsson, who completed third in a slalom in Slovenia on Sunday, was among the many quickest starters within the first run and led Vlhova by greater than two-tenths of a second on the first break up earlier than the Swede straddled a gate.
The Planai course is an annual cease on the lads’s circuit. The ladies final raced on the venue through the world championships in 2013.
The race was relocated from close by Flachau, which has been hit by a current rise in coronavirus infections.
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Extra AP snowboarding: https://apnews.com/hub/snowboarding and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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