American skier Shiffrin leads 1st run in GS at worlds
Washington, The Gulf Observer: American skier Mikaela Shiffrin took the lead in the giant slalom at the world championships on Thursday, a day after an unexpected split with longtime coach Mike Day.
Shiffrin was the third starter and beat the first-run time of then-leader Tessa Worley of France by 0.12 seconds.
“My skiing felt really good everywhere. The most important thing was I didn’t make any big mistakes,” Shiffrin said. “So I have to take a good balance of these tactics (for) the second run — smart skiing but also full aggression, because everybody had a run on the hill now so everybody can kind of step it up a notch.”
Day, the skier’s head coach since 2016, left the team during the middle of the world championships after Shiffrin informed him that she planned to take a new direction with her staff at the end of the season.
Shiffrin trailed Worley by 0.30 seconds at the final split but the American clocked the fastest time of all skiers in the final section.
“I actually thought that I would be slower than everybody on the last split. Because on these pitches this season, I have always been a little bit off,” Shiffrin said. “So when I was skiing I kept thinking, you have to push harder, push harder, push harder. So I guess that was the right tactic in the end.”
Shiffrin was the 2018 Olympic champion and won five of the last six giant slaloms on the World Cup circuit.
“My skiing feels good. I know how to ski GS, so just try to trust that,” Shiffrin said.
Italian skier Federica Brignone was third, 0.31 seconds behind. The rest of the field, led by defending champion Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland, had more than six-tenths of a second to make up in the second run.
Olympic giant slalom champion Sara Hector of Sweden finished 0.96 off the pace.
American skier Paula Moltzan spun around and missed a gate halfway through her run and did not finish. Moltzan fractured her hand in Tuesday’s team event, which the U.S. team won. Shiffrin did not compete in that event.
“The hand is as good as it was going to feel so I’m not disappointed with that,” said Moltzan, who had her glove taped to her ski pole during her run. “I think I just misjudged my turn a tiny bit and came inside a bit and couldn’t recover.”
A high number of 114 starters in the first run and the sunshine beaming down on the Roc de Fer could become a factor for course conditions in the second run, when the top 30 racers after the first run come down in reverse order.
Shiffrin didn’t finish her opening event at the worlds last week when she straddled a gate in the slalom portion of the combined. She won silver in the super-G two days later.
Shiffrin has 12 medals from 15 previous world championship races, giving her outright second place on the all-time list for the most individual medals won by a woman at the worlds, trailing only German skier Christl Cranz, who won 15 in the 1930s.
The American great, now without her coach, will go for a 13th medal in the second run later Thursday.
“Coaches are important but Shiffrin is still Shiffrin,” Italian skier Marta Bassino, who stood 13th, told The Associated Press. “She wasn’t depending (only) on him. Let’s not take anything away from him or the other coaches, with all due respect, but look at her.”
