American Mikaela Shiffrin re-wrote the history books Saturday by laying down two near-perfect runs to convincingly win a third consecutive world slalom title. The untouchable 21-year-old, who won giant slalom silver on Thursday, had dominated the first leg and went into the second with a 0.38sec lead on the field.
In brilliant sunshine which saw Shiffrin huddle under an umbrella for shade between runs, the American made no mistake on her second run, handing down a masterclass to again clock the fastest time for a combined total of 1min 37.27sec down the Suvretta course. Switzerland's Wendy Holdener, who won gold in the last week's alpine combined event, claimed silver, at a distant 1.64sec, with Sweden's Frida Hansdotter taking bronze (+1.75) after silver in 2015 and bronze in 2013.
"That second run felt really good," Shiffrin said, admitting to playing mind games to retain her edge. "My first run felt solid, but that time in the start for the second I could hear the crowd cheering for Wendy, it felt like I was standing there forever and I just thought 'just pretend they're cheering for you and go for it. You have to, otherwise what's the point'.
"I can't even think about being a three-time world champion, I'm just so happy with today. "The biggest thing I was thinking about was to ski fast and see if you can win and the next biggest thing was you're going to ski out and screw it up on the first gate. "For sure I was thinking about failure, but it didn't end up that way!"
Holdener acknowledged that it had been a "crazy two weeks" for her in front of a raucous home crowd. "There's been a lot of emotions and really successful races. It's really unbelievable to have the world championships at home with two medals." Hansdotter added: "It was tough, the conditions were really nice but it's tough because it's both icy and aggressive. "I'm super-happy to have a third medal in a row. It means a lot, to be able to ski at this high level for so many years is fantastic."
Slovakia's Veronika Velez Zuzulova, in third after the first run in her bid to win her country's first individual world championship medal, skied out midway down the course and when Holdener shot into the lead amid deafening support from a large home crowd, the pressure mounted. But Shiffrin kept her cool to hand out a startling primer in slalom skiing down a course coincidentally set by her personal coach, Mike Day, chosen in a random draw of all coaches.
The last female skier to bag three consecutive slalom crowns was Germany's Christel Cranz, but that was back in 1937-39 when the world championships were much smaller, equipment used was nowhere near as cutting edge as it is today, and course-setting and preparation were not nearly as taxing as modern skiers face.
With her latest victory, Shiffrin becomes the seventh skier to have managed to win an individual event at three consecutive world championships after Cranz (twice), France's Marielle Goitschel, Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark, Switzerland's Erika Hess, Norwegian Kjetil Andre Aamodt and fellow American Ted Ligety.
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