CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin will have a much better chance — better chances, actually — to claim a record victory at the 83rd World Cup.
After missing out on the podium on Friday and Saturday in two consecutive downhills, far from his best event, he will be hoping for more for the upcoming races in disciplines in which he excels.
The Cortina weekend concludes with a super-G on Sunday, then there are two giant slaloms in nearby San Vigilio di Marebbe on Tuesday and Wednesday before two slaloms in the Czech Republic next weekend.
Of Shiffrin’s 82 victories, 51 have been in slalom, 17 in giant slalom, five in super giant and just three in downhill. He has also won a combined and a handful of side and street races.
“I enjoy every race and the process is like an opportunity,” Shiffrin said after finishing seventh on Saturday. “I don’t feel like I have to win again. Of course I care. I want to win. That’s obvious. But I don’t feel like I have to win; that I’m supposed to win. I’m just here trying to figure out the track like all the other riders on the course and see if I can do my best and if it’s good enough to be anywhere near the top.
“Maybe sometimes it’s the fastest race. And that is the best place to be,” she added. “When I look forward, I see opportunities, but I don’t see pressure.”
Having coincided with her former teammate Lindsey Vonn for the women’s record with 82 wins each winning a giant slalom in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, earlier this month, Shiffrin finished second in a slalom in Flachau, Austria, and fourth in the first of two runs from Cortina on Friday.
In her latest record attempt, Shiffrin finished 0.39 seconds behind Slovenian winner Ilka Stuhec on the course that will be used for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.
All-season downhill leader Sofia Goggia, who won Friday’s race at Cortina, fell midway through her run but avoided injury.
While Shiffrin made a small mistake during the descent on Friday, he didn’t seem to make any significant mistakes in this race, but he still didn’t have enough speed in a discipline that is far from the best.
Stuhec, the 2017 and 2019 downhill world champion, finished 0.26 ahead of Kajsa Vickhoff Lie and 0.34 ahead of Elena Curtoni.
Stuhec finished second to Goggia on Friday but hadn’t won a World Cup race since December 2018.
The Olympia delle Tofane course was shortened due to the wind, eliminating the most characteristic section of the course, the Tofana Schuss or “slide” between two rock walls.
About a third of the course was removed.
Goggia lost control while performing a jump, twisted, crashed into a gate and slid down the mountain before quickly getting up and skiing to the finish, where he waved to the crowd to say he was fine.
The safety airbag under Goggia’s racing suit inflated during his crash, which may have helped soften his crash landing.
“I really made a mistake. It was not a lapse in concentration,” Goggia said. “It was good because nothing happened.”
Goggia broke two fingers on his left hand during a downhill ride in St. Moritz, Switzerland, last month, then returned after quick surgery to win another downhill ride a day later. He, too, crashed nastily into a super-giant last weekend in St. Anton, Austria, but avoided injury.
“Blow after blow, but tomorrow I’ll run,” Goggia said.
Austrian skier Nina Ortlieb also fell hard while jumping and ended up in the safety nets immediately before Goggia’s race.
Meanwhile, reigning world and Olympic champion Corinne Suter didn’t get out after falling in Friday’s race. The Swiss team says the decision was a “precautionary” measure and that Suter was not injured but that she “didn’t feel 100%.”
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