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Shiffrin takes slalom finale for 101st World Cup win / Photo: © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
Shiffrin takes slalom finale for 101st World Cup win
Mikaela Shiffrin won her 101st career World Cup race on Thursday, taking the women's slalom season finale while Zrinka Ljutic captured the discipline's crystal globe.
Shiffrin, a four-time world champion and 2014 Olympic champion in slalom, captured her 64th career World Cup slalom triumph. She took her 100th overall career World Cup victory in a slalom event last month at Sestriere, Italy.
"It was tough conditions," Shriffin said. "There were big tracks and a little bit wild rides sometimes, but I felt connected with the snow.
"My skis felt perfect and I could keep moving down the hill. It felt quite good to ski."
The 30-year-old American had a two-run combined time of 1min 45.92sec with Germany's Lena Duerr second in 1:47.05 and Swiss Wendy Holdener rounding out the podium (1:47.52).
Croatia's Ljutic captured her first globe with a 10th-place finish in 1:48.60. That was good enough for her first globe by 32 points over Austrian Katharina Liensberger, who was fifth in 1:47.86.
Shiffrin, who missed two months of the season after an abdominal injury in November, was too far back to win the slalom title for the ninth time in her career after taking the 2023 and 2024 globes.
"It has been quite up and down but I realized at 30 I'm still learning things every season," she said. "There are new and exciting adventures around the corner and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next."
She was thrilled at her fourth win of the season.
"It just boils down to the final moment I'm in the start gate and it's just me," Shriffin said. "Thinking about strong things. I have a lot of doubt in the day but in that moment, it's like just focus on the technical things as my cues and high intensity.
"Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I'm happy it worked today."
There was a four-woman fight for the globe in the final run.
Ljutic, the standings leader, was vulnerable but Switzerland's Camille Rast, second in the points chase at 41 behind, had a combined time of 1:48.83, unable to overtake Ljutic and finishing 14th.
Liensberger, who began the day 51 points back in third, completed the second run just behind Ljutic.
Holdener made the podium but she began 96 points adrift with only 100 on offer, needing a win and Ljutic not to score.
Q.Szulc--GL
