2023-12-09 14:00:53
There was a time when the American skier put the descent aside a little. A time gone by. Mikaela Shiffrin took advantage of the off-season to train diligently in the discipline, a choice which paid off this Friday in St-Moritz (Switzerland).
The seven-time world champion, bib number 3 on her back, dominated the major specialists in the discipline to take first place. By offering fast, fluid and controlled skiing, and without any big mistakes, she won her fourth descent, after two and a half years without having performed in the discipline. She won the Courchevel downhill in 2021, after that of Bansko (Bulgaria) in 2020 and that of Lake Louise (Canada) 7 years ago, in 2017.
91 World Cup victories
The five-time holder of the big crystal globe, world number 1 for the last two seasons, dominated the Italian Sofia Goggia by 15 hundredths and her colleague Federica Brignone by 17 hundredths. The roles were therefore reversed compared to Friday’s Super-G, where Mikaela Shiffrin had to settle for fourth place for the first race of the weekend which was won by the imperial Sofia Goggia. Last year, the Italian won the descent of the Swiss stage with a broken hand.
With this race, the 28-year-old American skier won her 91st World Cup victory and widened the gap at the top of the general classification. Mikaela Shiffrin is now 195 points ahead of Federica Brignone and 215 points ahead of the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami while the Slovakian Petra Vlhova, technician absent in St-Moritz, drops to fourth place.
The race for points continues this Sunday with the last race of the St-Moritz stage, a second super-G which promises to also be spectacular.
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