US star Mikaela Shiffrin on Sunday won the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup at Levi to chalk up her 89th career victory, despite skiing with a knee injury she suffered in training.
Shiffrin profited from Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhova’s mistake on the second run in Levi, where temperatures were minus-13°C.
The Slovak, who won the first race at the same venue on Saturday and held a clear lead after Sunday’s opening run, straddled a gate, forcing her out of the race.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Shiffrin, who already holds the record for the most World Cup wins, was 0.18 seconds ahead of Leona Popovic of Croatia with Germany’s Lena Duerr third, 0.30 seconds behind Shiffrin.
She was racing after suffering a bruised knee in a training crash last week, but said it had not affected her.
“I didn’t feel pain when I was skiing, it’s just that I didn’t train in the last 11 days,” she told reporters.
“The timing is just a little hard, especially in slalom it’s so important to have these [training] days in the gates. When you’re skiing there’s adrenaline and you don’t think about it so much,” she said.
Shiffrin said Vlhova had produced a “master class of slalom skiing” in the far north of Finland.
“I was sort of settled on second place,” Shiffrin said. “It feels like she should have won and I think everybody knows that, but I did earn a podium, so I was actually pretty satisfied with second place. I’ll take the luck this time.”
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