Mikaela Shiffrin takes first World Cup slalom of season for 98th career win

American ski star Mikaela Shiffrin dominated the first women’s World Cup slalom of the season Saturday for her record-extending 98th career win.

Shiffrin built on a big first-run lead with an aggressive yet controlled second run down the Levi Black course to beat 2021 slalom world champion Katharina Liensberger of Austria by 0.79sec.

Lena Duerr of Germany dropped from second to third, 0.83 behind Shiffrin, and was the last skier to finish less than a second off the lead.

“Amazing way to start the slalom season, I’m super happy,” Shiffrin said.

The two-time Olympic champion also led the season-opening giant slalom in Austria three weeks ago, but squandered that advantage in the second run to finish fifth.

On Saturday, Shiffrin initially extended her lead to a massive 1.25sec early in her final run before losing a few tenths.

“I was getting twisted sometimes, but then keep fighting. Not the perfect tempo, but enough really good turns that it works really well. In the end, a really solid run in conditions not so easy,” she said.

Shiffrin won both slaloms at the end of last season after her return from a knee injury following a downhill crash in January, clinching her eighth World Cup season title in the discipline.

She has now won 61 slaloms and 98 races overall – both are World Cup records across genders.

Shiffrin has triumphed a record eight times in the traditional season-opening slalom in Finnish Lapland, where the winner is given a reindeer as a prize.

After the first run, Shiffrin said she “felt good.”

“I felt strong and solid and good energy. Little bit nervous, like first race, first slalom of the season, so I’m happy with how I managed the mentality and pushed with my skiing,” she said.

Croatian prodigy Zrinka Ljutic who was third after the opening run, lost three spots.

Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzan went from fifth to eighth position.

In the opening run, Moltzan was 0.05sec faster than Shiffrin on the flat opening section of the course but lost time going into the steep part and ultimately trailed by 0.90. In the second run, Moltzan posted the 17th-fastest time and ended 1.51 behind Shiffrin.

Olympic champion Petra Vlhova, Shiffrin’s biggest rival in slalom, sat out the race as the Slovakian needed more to time to recover from knee surgery last season.

American standout Lindsey Vonn, who this week announced her return to the U.S. ski team more than five years after her retirement, was expected to race again at speed events later this season.