Mikaela Shiffrin moves up all-time wins list with super-G gold
Canada's Gagnon earns best result of season in 6th
Mikaela Shiffrin won a World Cup super-G on Saturday, confirming the slalom great's arrival as a pure speed racer and all-round threat.
Shiffrin's win, the 47th of her career, broke a tie with retired Austrian Renate Götschl for fourth on the women's all-time list behind Lindsey Vonn (82), Annemarie Moser-Pröll (62) and Vreni Schneider (55).
Gagnon places 6th
Canada's Marie-Michele Gagnon earned her best result of the season. The 29-year-old from Lac-Etchemin, Que., finished sixth with a time of 1:12.82, just over a second and a half behind Shiffrin.
"I am definitely happy. This is matching my best result in super-G. We always have great results in St-Moritz, the last time I scored sixth place in super-G was actually here. Feeling very positive," said Gagnon
Fellow Canadian Roni Remme finished 28th. Valérie Grenier, of St-Isidore, Ont., was charging hard in the top part of the course when she took a wide turn that made her miss a gate and couldn't complete the race.
Watch highlights from Gagnon's run:
Saturday's race was just Shiffrin's 10th super-G start in her nine seasons on the World Cup circuit, and the win days ago at Lake Louise, Canada, had been her first podium finish in the discipline.
"I did not expect to win today," Shiffrin said, acknowledging the confidence boost she brought from Canada to Switzerland. "Something is working right now and I'm enjoying it. Coming into this race I thought, 'Yeah, now I have no excuses."'
Her fourth victory in eight races this season already gives her a runaway lead in defence of her overall World Cup title.
Taking a break
With a maximum 200 points from the two super-G races this season, Shiffrin can afford to avoid some speed races.
Shiffrin plans to skip the next World Cup stop — rescheduled downhill and super-G races on Dec. 18-19 at Val Gardena, Italy — to focus on preparing for her specialist technical events of slalom and giant slalom.
"Pick and choose which races seem to be appropriate," she said, targeting her favoured races on Dec. 21-22 at Courchevel, France.
Watch Shiffrin's successful super-G race:
Shiffrin pointed to a little luck of the draw Saturday, getting start bib No. 12, which let her see tricky gates set by a Norway team coach that caught out earlier racers, including Olympic silver medallist Anna Veith.
"If you were off balance, [you had] no chance," Shiffrin said. "My coaches did a great job to say exactly where I needed to be smart and where I could just go like a crazy woman."
WATCH | Women's super-G race in St. Moritz:
Shiffrin's run denied Gut-Behrami a repeat of her first career win in this race 10 years ago as a 17-year-old breakout star. Weirather is a two-time winner of the St. Moritz super-G and the Olympic bronze medallist .
Olympic champion Ester Ledecka extended her run of disappointing World Cup super-G results, finishing 2.64 back in 29th place. Ledecka, whose only top-15 result in super-G was her gold medal run at Pyeongchang, seemed in discomfort after the race.
The St. Moritz meeting includes a parallel giant slalom event Sunday in the head-to-head racing format.
With files from CBC Sports