Mikaela Shiffrin is an immense champion and she did not wait for the giant of the World Championships, this Thursday, to prove it. But the American, record holder of World Cup victories (85), wrote one more line to her formidable record by becoming world champion in this discipline for the first time in her career, after six gold medals in two races. other disciplines, including four in slalom.
For Tessa Worley, the dream maintained during the first round, which she had finished on the heels of the American (second at 12 hundredths), turned into a nightmare during the second layout. The Grand-Bornand skier fell a few doors from the finish when she was virtually in the lead, ahead of the Italian Federica Brignone, leader at that moment and finally silver medalist. The bronze medal went to Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel.
The tricolor clan remains stuck at two medals
For Worley, aged 33, who won the small specialty globe last year in Méribel, it is one more disappointment in the heart of a gently sloping winter with an 8th place in the specialty classification and no podium to his credit as a giant in the World Cup. She therefore did not win a third world title in the discipline after those of 2013 and 2017.
However, from the first run, drawn by her trainer, she had shown good dispositions, finishing second just behind Mikaela Shiffrin, the huge favorite. “The objective is fulfilled: to be in the game and be able to give everything in the second run to get the title, the medal. The second round is going to be totally different, ”announced the skier from Grand-Bornand. It was without counting on this fault in the last moments.
The tricolor clan remains stuck at two medals at these Worlds after Alexis Pinturault’s gold and bronze in combined and super-G.