Mikaela Shiffrin demonstrated her remarkable skill and resilience by clinching a come-from-behind victory in the World Cup night slalom held in Semmering, Austria, on December 17, 2023. This win marks her sixth consecutive triumph in slalom events, further solidifying her dominance in the sport.
Shiffrin faced challenging conditions throughout the competition. In the first run, she finished in fourth place, trailing by more than half a second. The course deteriorated rapidly, posing significant difficulties for all competitors. Despite this setback, Shiffrin delivered a stellar performance in the evening session, clocking the fastest time and surpassing first-run leader Camille Rast of Switzerland by a mere 0.09 seconds. Italian-born Lara Colturi, a rising star representing Albania, secured third place, finishing 0.57 seconds behind Shiffrin.
Reflecting on her performance, Shiffrin expressed the challenges she encountered. “It was a really hard day today, tough conditions, a really big fight, and the pressure’s on. And oh, I did my best, best possible run,” she stated in a course-side interview. Shiffrin acknowledged the intensity of the competition, saying, “It didn’t feel like good. I didn’t expect to come down with the green light.”
This victory ties Shiffrin’s personal best start to a slalom season, a feat she previously achieved in the 2018-19 season. She had already secured the final race of the last season and dominated the first four slaloms of the current Olympic campaign, winning by an average margin of 1.5 seconds prior to her recent narrow win.
In the first run, Shiffrin was just one-hundredth of a second ahead of Rast at the halfway mark. However, she lost valuable time in the bottom section of the course, which she attributed to “overskiing” and not fully optimizing her technique.
Shiffrin, the 2014 Olympic champion and holder of the women’s World Cup record with 69 slalom victories, has previously won the slalom in Semmering three times, including her last victory in 2022, after winning two consecutive giant slalom races at the same venue.
With this latest win, she has extended her lead over second-placed Colturi in the slalom standings to 220 points. Each race win is valued at 100 points, and with three more slaloms scheduled for January before the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Shiffrin is well-positioned to continue her successful run.
The competition also saw Croatia’s Zrinka Ljutic, who won the previous season’s race and later claimed the slalom globe, finishing a considerable 3.75 seconds behind in eighth place. Shiffrin’s teammate, Paula Moltzan, who was seventh after the first run, straddled a gate in her second run. Moltzan had experienced a difficult day, having crashed the previous day during a giant slalom on the same hill, which was won by Austria’s Julia Scheib, who does not participate in slalom events.
Next, the women’s World Cup will move to Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, for a giant slalom and slalom event next weekend, where Shiffrin will aim to extend her winning streak.
