Mikaela Shiffrin competes in women's giant slalom at the world cup on Dec. 29, 2017 in Lienz, Austria.
Mikaela Shiffrin’s three-event win streak came to a halt, but she still rose to the giant slalom podium in the FIS World Cup in Lienz, Austria on Friday.
Shiffrin, who already qualified for a spot in giant slalom for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, finished third in Lienz world cup event for the 53rd podium of her career.
Italy’s Federica Brignone won the event in a combined time of 2:05.52 after finishing the first run in fourth place. Her time on the second-run was also fourth best, but enough to leapfrog past Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg, who led after the first run but had the ninth-best second run, finishing second in 2:05.56.
Shiffrin, 22, was second behind Rebensburg after the opening run, and finished in a combined time of 2:05.60 for third place.
Rebensburg posted a time of 1:02.76 to take the lead after the first run, and Shiffrin found herself only .05 back in 1:02.81, just ahead of Slovenia’s Tina Robnik, who finished in 1:02.88 and also suffered through the diminishing conditions of the second run to miss the podium.
The lower section of the course deteriorated for the second run as skier after skier lost time on that portion of the Schlossberg course, which featured a 328-meter vertical drop. The final eight skiers, however, put it all on the line and began asserting command of the leaderboard thanks mainly to their first-run times.
In Shiffrin’s final run, the Eagle-Vail, Colorado, native lost time midway down the course when she bobbled on her left ski, and couldn’t hold the straight line to the finish, taking third overall.
She still leads the current world cup standings overall, in downhill, slalom and giant slalom. She has a 298-285 point lead over Rebensburg in the giant slalom standings, and an 881-510 lead over her in the overall standings.
Gary R. Blockus is a journalist from Allentown, Pennsylvania who has covered multiple Olympic Games. He is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
