Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova enter weekend tied in overall World Cup Alpine ski standings

The pressure is not off of Mikaela Shiffrin by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it’s maybe been turned up a notch.

Coming off of a disappointing Olympics where the weight of seemingly unrealistic expectations resulted in three DNF’s and zero medals, the Vail superstar has three weekends of World Cup racing left to determine if she will claim a fourth overall globe. She’ll begin her stretch run on Saturday in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, contesting the super-G, with a giant slalom to follow. Shiffrin earned the sport’s highest prize three straight seasons from 2017-2019 before coming up second to Federica Brignone in 2020.

The defending champion, Petra Vlhova, knotted things up atop the leader board last weekend.

The Slovakian tech specialist ventured away from the slalom for once, a discipline title she already has mathematically secured in 2022, finishing 29th and 16th in the two Crans Montana, Switzerland downhills on Feb. 26-27. Now, the rivals each have exactly 1,026 total World Cup points.

A fourth overall crown would tie Shiffrin with Lindsey Vonn for second on the all-time list, trailing only Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proll, who won six overall globes in the 1970s.

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The 26-year-old American, who has won discipline globes in slalom, super-G, and giant slalom throughout her career (a feat she accomplished in the 2019 season alone) is currently in third in the giant slalom standings, trailing Sara Hector of Sweden by 101 points and Tessa Worley of France by just six. With three events left and 100 points going to each event winner, a second career title in the GS is a possibility. It is the only discipline title she has a shot at, with Brignone leading the super-G and Shiffrin sitting seventh, 257 points back, with only two races remaining.

Walsh gets ready for Paralympic Games

Beijing isn’t quieting down quite yet, as 700 athletes will compete in 78 events — 39 for men, 35 for women and four mixed — at the Paralympic Games March 4-13. Alpine and cross-country skiing, biathlon, sled hockey, snowboarding and wheelchair curling will all be included in the roughly 230 hours of coverage by NBCUniversal, including, for the first time in history, three hours of prime time coverage on NBC.

Vail’s Thomas Walsh, who nearly was left at home because of COVID test issues, is set to compete in his first event, the super-G, on March 5 at 7 p.m. Mountain Time. A full schedule can be found at NBCOlympics.com.

Radamus looks ahead to Kranjska Gora

River Radamus, who placed 15th in the Olympic super-G, will not contest the event this weekend in Kvitfjell, Norway, but will return to action in Kranjska Gora for two giant slaloms Mar. 12-13.

In Beijing, Radamus finished fourth in both the team parallel and giant slalom, where he was just 0.26 seconds off the podium. In his fifth official World Cup campaign, the 24-year-old has seen another massive leap in performance. After missing the top 30 in the giant slalom in his first three seasons, the Edwards resident was 28th last year. Currently, the three-time Youth Olympic Games gold medalist and two-time World Junior Champion is ninth in the discipline season standings.