Exorcizing her demons from severe disappointment at the Beijing Olympic Games, Mikaela Shiffrin clinched her fourth career overall World Cup title on Thursday in Courchevel, France.
Shiffrin finished second in a super-G race, just .05 seconds behind Norwegian winner Ragnhild Mowinckel. The U.S. ski racing star earning 80 points and increasing her total to an insurmountable 236 points lead over nearest challenger and rival Petra Vlhova.
Two tech races remain at the season-ending World Cup Finals shared by the French Alps resorts of Courchevel and Meribel, however with 100 points awarded for a victory, Shiffrin’s lead is out of reach.
Shiffrin’s fourth career overall World Cup title equals her former U.S. Ski Team teammate Lindsey Vonn. Austrian legend Annemarie Moser-Proell sped to six titles in the 1970′s.
The 27-year-old American ski racer was asked by Around the Rings how this title compares to the other three, which she won consecutively between 2017-19.
“I feel like it was the most unlikely, in some ways it felt impossible that this could happen,” Shiffrin told reporters in the Courchevel finish area.
“There were many times during the season, where I was thinking I’m not going to race the downhills in Crans-Montana, I have to get some training back and have some rest after these Olympics because we skied 20 days in a row in China and I’ve never done that in my career.”
At the Beijing Games, Shiffrin’s best result was only ninth, including three uncharacteristic ‘Did Not Finishes’ in six races.
Shiffrin was asked how she managed to bounce back so quickly after her disappointment in China.
“It’s hard to say I did actually bounce back because I don’t know if you bounce back after something like that, that feels like it goes so wrong in your career,” said Shiffrin, who won gold medals at both Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018.
I just put one foot in front of the other, continue skiing, get some distance from the Olympics, ski on some different conditions and start to feel like the other 12 years of my career also means something and these three weeks at the Olympics didn’t really change it, it was just a really bad three weeks.
“And unfortunately, it was publicly bad too, so that’s a difficult thing that I’ll continue to deal with because people will continue to ask at every race for quite some time.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be OK with the feeling I had there, but I still look back from China, and there were moments here and there outside of the racing, the performance, even time on snow that were nice moments,” she said.
Vlhova, last season’s overall World Cup winner, commended Shiffrin in defeat.
“I tried to do everything, but of course Mikaela had an amazing two days and I’m happy for her and she confirmed that she is the best now and she won overall,” Vlhova said.
“Maybe after the Olympic Games, a lot of people started thinking that maybe she is not that good, but she came back strong like a true champion.”
Her season title is especially impressive considering Shiffrin missed 10 days of competition and training due to a case of COVID-19 in late December, with less than six week to the Beijing Games. She also decided to skip two important downhill races in Switzerland in late February, which could have ended her title chances.
“All of these decisions, it was all basically snowballing based upon the fact that I was stuck inside 10 days with COVID, and the biggest competitors I had this year, did not have those 10 days, but that’s what it is.
“In the end, these decisions worked out to be here now and it just seemed like the most unlikely thing that could happen. "
I’m proud of it, thankful, really grateful and also really happy for my coaches and my whole team, who worked so hard and earned this together with me or even for me,” she said.
Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr won the men’s super-G on Thursday, his second victory in two days at the World Cup Finals. Shiffrin’s boyfriend, Alexander Aamodt Kilde was awarded the globe as World Cup super-G winner.
Action shifts to nearby Meribel on Friday for the team event, which will be followed by giant slaloms and slaloms on Saturday and Sunday to close out the season.
Follow Brian on Twitter - @Brian_Pinelli
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