Mikaela Shiffrin takes sixth in Semmering World Cup giant slalom as Julia Scheib claims third victory of the year on home soil
Marco Tacca/AP photo
Mikaela Shiffrin placed sixth in the World Cup giant slalom in Semmering, Austria on Saturday as Julia Scheib delighted the home crowd with her third win of the season.
“Today was quite challenging,” Shiffrin said.
Scheib, who came into the year never having won a World Cup, used a scorching final sector in her second run to move past first-run leader Sara Hector. The 27-year-old stopped the clock with a two-run time of 1 minute, 56.46 seconds. Swiss skier Camile Rast moved up three places in the second run to take second, 0.14 back, while Hector, the defending Olympic champion in the event, rounded out the podium in third.
“Yeah crazy, I never thought it would be a win,” Scheib said in a TV interview. “It was so tough; it was bumpy and I was so relieved when I came into the finish.”
Shiffrin has won all four slaloms on the circuit this season but has now gone 10 giant slalom races without reaching the podium, her longest streak since her first 15 GS races between 2010 and 2013. She placed fourth in the season-opening competition in Soelden on Oct. 25 and 14th at the event at Copper Mountain in November. Prior to Saturday, she was sixth and fourth in the discipline on Dec. 6-7, respectively, in Tremblant, Canada. The Edwards skier currently sits fifth in the cup standings.
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Shiffrin was in eighth after the first run, 1.16 seconds back from Hector’s 57.15-second standard. Teammate Paula Moltzan led all American skiers in sixth. Meanwhile, super-G globe leader Alice Robinson — who has won two GS competitions this year — was one of 19 athletes to post a DNF in the first run as athletes battled difficult conditions on the hard-packed Panorama slope.
“I think so far this season the second run, that was maybe the biggest test for me — I was really quite scared actually. I knew it would be bumpy from the first run and I didn’t really feel after the first run that I could tackle this again,” Shiffrin said. “So, I changed the mentality on the second just to try to be as smooth and soft on the surface as possible. So, it wasn’t going to be the most fast skiing or the most powerful turns, but it felt much more manageable.”
Shiffrin didn’t attack the 39 gates with as direct of a line as she needed to gain ground in the middle of the course. The overall crystal globe leader found time, however, near the bottom, where she posted the fifth-best final segment.
With Robinson’s crash, Scheib moved into the pole position in the giant slalom standings with the victory on home soil.
“It’s amazing. I can’t describe (it). I hear the crowd before I broke into the last section. I thought ‘OK, I have to let go of the skis’ and yeah, it was amazing,” Scheib said. “I want to continue like this but I want to also focus a little bit on super-G, so we’ll see.”
In her fourth World Cup start, Vail’s Kjersti Moritz posted the 26th-quickest first sector and made it through the second segment in 45th before failing to finish the first run. The 21-year-old made her debut at Copper Mountain in November and also competed in a pair of tech races at Mount Tremblant a week later. She returned to Copper on Dec. 9 and won the NorAm Cup giant slalom.
Moltzan caught an edge in a cross rut and took a hard fall in the middle of the course on run No. 2. A.J. Hurt was the other American to earn a second run. The 25-year-pld placed 21st in her first race since the slalom in Gurgl on Nov. 23.
The action continues in Semmering with a slalom on Sunday. Shiffrin, who has 68-career slalom victories, leads the discipline standings with 400 points, 180 more than Lara Colturi in second.
“I’m so happy with my slalom skiing so far, but it takes lots of practice and a lot of effort to keep the coordination this high. Now the last three weeks it hasn’t been a lot of slalom training,” Shiffrin said. “It’s going to be a lot of effort tomorrow, but I’m looking forward to it.”
