Mikaela Shiffrin's big-race woes continue at the world championships
American star skis out in another major event
This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.
The 2022 Winter Olympics were an unqualified disaster for Mikaela Shiffrin. Favoured to win gold in three events and expected to contend in three more, the world's most successful ski racer instead left Beijing without a medal. Shiffrin didn't even come close in her five individual events, placing ninth in the super-G, 18th in the downhill and, stunningly, failing to finish the slalom, giant slalom and combined — her three best disciplines. A fourth-place showing as part of the U.S. squad in the mixed team event was the "highlight" of Shiffrin's Olympics.
Since then, Shiffrin has climbed back to the top. Immediately after Beijing, she closed out the 2021-22 World Cup season by clinching her fourth women's overall title, a prestigious prize emblematic of the most complete ski racer. This season, she's taken her dominance to new heights, winning an incredible 11 of her 23 World Cup starts to open up a massive lead in the overall standings.
Shiffrin is so good right now that she's no longer being measured against her peers, but against the legends of the sport. Last month, she surpassed Lindsey Vonn for the most women's World Cup alpine wins in history. Now, at the age of just 27, Shiffrin is one victory shy of Ingemar Stenmark's all-gender record of 86, which has stood since the 1980s. Shiffrin's record chase has made her, at the moment, the most celebrated athlete in Olympic sports.
But the Winter of Mikaela hit a bump today as the alpine world championships opened in France with the women's combined.Shiffrin, the defending champion in this two-run event, had erased her deficit from the opening super-G leg with a blistering slalom run that put her in first place with the finish line in sight when she straddled a gate and was DQ'd. 2022 Olympic combined bronze medallist Federica Brignone won her first world title while Marie-Michèle Gagnon was the top Canadian, placing 10th.
This was Shiffrin's first major race since the Beijing Olympics. While her long-term record in big events remains sparkling — she's won two gold medals at the Olympics (in 2014 and '18) and six at the biennial world championships — it's fair to say she's struggled of late on the brightest stages. Going back to Beijing, Shiffrin has been able to complete just two of her last six individual races at major championships, with nothing even close to a medal to show for it. After today's result, her streak of five consecutive world championships with at least one gold medal, which dates back to 2013, looks like it could be in jeopardy.
Shiffrin will be hard-pressed to silence this narrative before the end of the week. The next two women's races at the world championships are the super-G on Wednesday and the downhill on Saturday. While she's capable of winning these "speed" events (in fact, she captured the super-G world title in 2019), Shiffrin is much stronger in the more technical slalom and giant slalom disciplines, the source of 10 of her 11 World Cup victories this season. Those go later next week. Read more about Shiffrin's loss in the combined and watch highlights here.
The world championships continue Tuesday with the men's combined. Canada has a strong medal contender in Jack Crawford, a 25-year-old who won bronze in the combined at the Olympics last year after narrowly missing the podium in the downhill. Crawford also placed fourth in the combined at the last world championships, in 2021 in Italy. He's reached the World Cup podium twice this season in the downhill and ranks sixth in that discipline.
You can watch every race at the world championships live on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem, continuing with the men's combined Tuesday at 5 a.m. ET (first leg) and 8:30 a.m. ET (second leg). Read about the Canadians competing at the world championships here and watch Scott Russell's video primer on the worlds here:
WATCH | Things to know ahead of alpine worlds:
