ARE, Sweden — Mikaela Shiffrin returned from injury with a dominant slalom win in Are, Sweden, that extended her record career haul to 96 World Cup victories and clinched the title in the discipline for the eighth time.
The American was fastest in both legs to beat Croatia’s Zrinka Ljutic by 1.24 seconds, with Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin third.
The title lifts her level with compatriot Lindsey Vonn and Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark for the most in a single discipline, Reuters reported.
Shiffrin had been absent since injuring her knee in a downhill at Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy last January, losing her overall World Cup lead.
The slalom is her signature discipline, however, and she showed she was back with a bang by completing the first run in 49.94 seconds.
She then completed the second run in 53.01, 0.40 faster than home favourite Anna Swenn Larsson.
With only one slalom remaining at the World Cup finals in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria, Shiffrin has an insurmountable 225 point lead over Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova, who suffered a season-ending injury in January.
The American is third in the overall standings, 345 points behind Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami, but has said she will not compete in the super-G and downhill events at the March 16-24 finals.
“It was so nice to race again today, and some nerves and all the emotions that I hoped to feel,” said Shiffrin, who celebrates her 29th birthday on Wednesday.
“Really proud of my whole team and for sure proud of myself to get back here…the second run was some of my best skiing so I’m just so happy to be able to do that again this season.
“First run I felt actually like I was pushing really hard but sometimes I wasn’t keeping up with the pace of the course,” she added. “This (second) run was, like, I wouldn’t change one thing.”
Shiffrin had just “four normal slalom sessions in the last seven weeks” coming into Sunday´s race.
“I was pushing the whole way, and when I feel the knee, it doesn´t distract me from skiing or from pushing my skis, so then that´s perfect,” she said according to AP.
“I felt great with my first run skiing, but if I could be like a little bit more clean, it would feel better, also on the knee, so this run was like… I wouldn’t change one thing.”
With her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova out for the season after knee surgery, the American´s only remaining challenger for the slalom season title was Lena Duerr.
The German skier had to win both Sunday´s race and the season-ending slalom at the World Cup finals in Austria next weekend to stay in contention, but finished fourth, 1.35 behind Shiffrin.
The season title is Shiffrin´s eighth in slalom, making her the fourth skier to win eight crystal globes – the traditional prize in Alpine skiing – in a single classification.
Former American teammate Lindsey Vonn achieved the feat in downhill. On the men´s side, Austrian standout Marcel Hirscher won eight overall championships, and Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark reached that number of titles in both slalom and GS.
The slalom makes up half of the American’s collection of 16 career globes, alongside her five overall championships, one super-G and two GS titles.
The slalom title will be Shiffrin´s only globe this season. She skipped Saturday´s giant slalom on the same hill and won´t compete in the speed events of the finals, leaving her without enough races to close the 345-point gap on leader Lara Gut-Behrami.
The Swiss star, who doesn’t compete in slalom, has all but secured her second overall title, after winning it for the first time in 2016, and is also a strong favorite to win the downhill, super-G, and GS titles.
Shiffrin had already made a winning return from an extensive mid-season break to nurse a knee injury. She didn´t race for nine weeks after getting hurt in December 2015, but won her comeback race at a slalom in Crans-Montana, Switzerland in February 2016.
