Mikaela Shiffrin (center) celebrates her giant slalom win at the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup on March 10, 2017 in Squaw Valley, Calif.
Less than a month after winning giant slalom silver at the 2017 world championships, Mikaela Shiffrin found the top step of the podium Friday afternoon at the world cup race in Squaw Valley, California, taking her third giant slalom win of the season.
Shiffrin led the field by 0.20 seconds with a time of 1:08.75 on Friday’s first run, then closed out the victory with a 1:07.67 on her second trip down the Red Dog course, giving her a combined time of 2:16.42. Italy’s Federico Brignone was second at 2:16.45 while Tessa Worley of France, the current world cup leader, fell off the pace in the last half of the course to place third in 2:16.49.
Shiffrin increases her career giant slalom world cup podium total to nine, including four wins. She now has 42 career podiums overall in 103 starts since her debut on March 11, 2011.
Already the leader in both the overall and slalom world cup standings, Shiffrin locked down no worse than second place in the giant slalom rankings with Friday’s performance and assured her invitation to the season finale March 19 in Aspen, Colorado. She hopes to secure her fourth slalom crystal globe of the last five seasons with a victory Saturday in Squaw Valley.
