LAKE LOUISE, Alberta – Mikaela Shiffrin captured her first World Cup super-G race on Sunday to give her a win in all five major disciplines.
Shiffrin completed her run in a time of 1 minute, 19.41 seconds to hold off Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway by 0.77 seconds. Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany finished third.
Known for her technical skills, the two-time overall World Cup champion Shiffrin has steadily worked on her speed events over the years. She won a downhill race at Lake Louise last season.
Shiffrin of Avon, Colorado, now has 46 World Cup victories in the slalom, giant slalom, downhill, super-G and the combined. She’s also won in the parallel slalom, which some consider a sixth discipline.
“It was one of my big goals to win in every discipline when I first started racing – one of those goals that you don’t think you are ever going to achieve,” the 23-year-old Shiffrin said. “It’s incredible.”
She acknowledged she hasn’t done any super-G training since September. It certainly didn’t look like that was the case. The 12th racer on the course, she found the fastest line.
“This morning when I woke up I thought, ‘Well, let’s see what I can do!’” the two-time Olympic gold medalist said. “I just skied very aggressive. I wanted to be aggressive. I wanted to find speed. And whatever line I was going to take, I was going to use it to find speed. It felt amazing.”
Right after the race, Lindsey Vonn congratulated her on social medial. Vonn also has won in every major discipline.
Over the weekend, the downhill track at Lake Louise was renamed “Lake Lindsey Way” in honor of Vonn, who missed these races due to a knee injury. All set to retire following this season, Vonn altered her plans and will now compete at Lake Louise next season. Vonn has 18 World Cup wins at what she calls her favorite venue.
Shiffrin halted the winning streak of Austrian Nicole Schmidhofer, who won the two downhill races at Lake Louise. Schmidhofer finished in 11th place and 1.09 seconds behind Shiffrin.
In the men’s race, Stefan Luitz used a powerful finish to capture a World Cup giant slalom Sunday, ending Marcel Hirscher’s five-race winning streak. By taking second, Hirscher has made the top-three in 16 straight World Cup GS events. This was also his ninth World Cup podium at Beaver Creek. Thomas Tumler of Switzerland was third for his first World Cup podium.
