JASNA, Slovakia — Mikaela Shiffrin built a big lead in the opening run of a women’s World Cup slalom Sunday, a day after the American ski star’s main rival sustained a season-ending injury.
In the first race without Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhova, Shiffrin led second-placed Croatian prodigy Zrinka Ljutic by 0.52 seconds and the rest of the field had to make up more than 1.3 on the American in the final run.
Shiffrin positioned herself for career win 95 and the American could also set a record for most World Cup podiums in a single discipline, currently sharing the best mark of 81 top-three results in slalom with Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark.
Vlhova crashed and tore ligaments in her right knee in Saturday’s giant slalom near her hometown in the Tatra mountains.
Shiffrin and Vlhova have been dominating women’s slalom skiing for years and combined won 13 of the last 14 races, including all seven this season, in a series only interrupted by Lena Duerr when the German triumphed at the Czech resort Spindleruv Mlyn a year ago.
“I have been thinking about (Vlhova) a lot the last 24 hours,” Shiffrin said. “For me, personally, over these years I have grown to love the battles with her. I think today she would have been so strong. So, I really miss watching her ski today and having that battle.”
With Vlhova out of the race, Shiffrin is close to wrapping up her eighth World Cup season title in slalom, leading third-ranked Duerr by 168 points.
On Sunday, Duerr was 2.09 seconds off the lead in 10th after the first run.
Vlhova became the third former overall champion who had their season end prematurely this month. On the men’s side, Alexis Pinturault and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde underwent surgery far various injuries after they crashed at speed races in Wengen, Switzerland.
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