CNN
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Mikaela Shiffrin claimed her 75th World Cup victory in Levi, Finland on Saturday, sealed by an electrifying second run, as she broke Lindsey Vonn’s record for most podium finishes in a single discipline by a female skier .
She is now just seven World Cup victories shy of her fellow American’s record of 82 wins for a skier and 11 behind all-time leader Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden.
“It was a good feeling in the first run, I felt pretty good, but I was holding myself back a bit,” she said, according to the International Ski Federation (FIS) website, after her 67th victory in slalom in the World Cup. Vonn has 66 downhill victories.
“In the second run I made some adjustments and felt really good pace and pace. I was strong and solid all over the place.
She had an advantage of just two hundredths of a second from the first pass to the second and entering the steepest section of the course she was 0.14 seconds behind Slovakian Petra Vlhova.
But down the steep incline and to the finish, Shiffrin showed her trademark power to complete both runs in a time of 1.51:25, pushing Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larson into second place by 0.16 seconds. .
Vlhova, who had won the previous four slaloms at Levi, eventually finished third.
“Today was a really good day. It wasn’t easy, I was a bit nervous but in the end I was able to ski the way I wanted,” Shiffrin told Eurosport afterwards.
“On the second run in particular, I really felt the good skis, the fun turns to do, sometimes you push as hard as you can and it doesn’t work – you overlap or you don’t win. It can be heartbreaking, but for today we can celebrate and refocus for tomorrow.
It marked Shiffrin’s triumphant and continued return after she failed to finish three of the six events she competed in at the 2022 Winter Olympics in February and returned from Beijing empty-handed. .
And, in addition to the gold medal, Shiffrin will return from Levi with his fifth Lapland reindeer, the traditional prize at Levi.
“I have no ideas [about a name] but we can have a debrief later with the team,” she said, according to the FIS website. “I’ll find the name later, or tomorrow. I never think of a name before I run, because I don’t want to jinx him.
