ARE, Sweden — Mikaela Shiffrin broke Ingemar Stenmark’s Alpine Skiing World Cup podium record with her 156th top-three placing in a slalom on Swedish snow as Austrian skier Katharina Truppe celebrated her first victory.
Truppe led Katharina Liensberger in an Austrian one-two in Are with American Shiffrin third after skiing fastest in the first leg and looking good for a record-extending 101st career World Cup win.
The 29-year-old American went last in the second run and, with the piste rutted and bumpy, lost more than a second to Truppe to finish 0.19 adrift, Reuters reported.
The American’s second-leg time was only the 25th fastest of the 30 runners.
“First victory, it’s crazy. I have goosebumps on my body,” said Truppe, who was sixth after the first run but beat Liensberger by 0.05 for her first victory in 186 starts.
The chase for the slalom crystal globe will go down to the final race of the season in Sun Valley, Idaho, on March 27 with Croatia’s Zrinka Ljutic 41 points clear of Switzerland’s Camille Rast.
“I´m a little bit speechless because I was just so nervous at the start. But I was much more nervous when I was sitting in the red chair,” said the 29-year-old Truppe who has four previous podiums to her name.
Liensberger is third, 51 points off the lead, with Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener also in mathematical contention but 96 points behind Ljutic.
Swedish great Stenmark took his 155 World Cup podiums, including 86 wins, between 1974 and 1989.
Truppe has shown a new confidence of late since producing an outstanding slalom run in Saalbach, which helped Austria take bronze in the team combined at the recent world championships.
“I didn´t expect it this season because it is not easy for me to go on slalom and find some lines and some spirit but today was the day,” said Truppe. “It was a tough race. It wasn´t easy, especially because the light was not so good, and the slope, but I was fighting.
Shiffrin broke Stenmark’s wins record in 2023 after surpassing compatriot Lindsey Vonn’s female best of 82 victories in January of that year.
She is not in the running for the slalom World Cup title after two months out recovering from a giant slalom fall in November.
It marked the American´s 156th podium finish to give her the record outright, one more than the 155 she shared with Sweden´s Ingemar Stenmark.
Last month Shiffrin, who is battling back from an abdominal puncture suffered during a crash in Killington last November, became the first skier, male or female, to claim 100 World Cup wins.
French skier Alexis Pinturault confirmed that he would focus on the giant slalom next season, with the goal of competing in the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
The 33-year-old had to be airlifted to hospital after a crash during a World Cup Super-G race in January and has been sidelined since, but he is aiming to compete when the new season starts.
“The ideal is for me to focus on what I do best, where I’ve always been the best and where I’ll still be in the top 30 when next season starts,” Pinturault, the 2021 overall World Cup champion and a three-times Olympic medallist, told reporters.
