Mikaela Shiffrin (L) celebrates with Melanie Meillard of Switzerland at the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup City Event on Jan. 1, 2018 in Oslo, Norway.
Mikaela Shiffrin rang in the new year with yet another milestone victory.
Shiffrin, the overall leader in the world cup standings, fought her way through dense fog and cruised to a world cup victory Monday in the city event held in Oslo, Norway. She beat Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener to become the first woman to win two city event world cups.
Shiffrin, the 2014 Olympic slalom champion who has already secured a nomination to the 2018 U.S. Olympic Team, won her sixth event of the season in the first-ever parallel slalom city event in Oslo. It was Shiffrin’s 37th career world cup victory and her 54th world cup podium.
The 37 world cup victories places her in a tie for sixth place on the all-time world cup wins list with her childhood hero, Austria’s Marlies Schild.
It’s also the second career city event win for Shiffrin, who won the Stockholm city event last January.
Shiffrin won her first run in the finals against Holdener by a scant 0.01 seconds despite a wobbly finish, and then sprinted to the finish line .17 ahead of Holdener in the final run.
Switzerland’s Melanie Meillard, 19, earned her first career podium with a third-place finish by beating Sweden’s Frida Hansdotter, becoming the first female teenager on a world cup podium since Shiffrin did so in 2015.
Shiffrin swept both runs in each of the four rounds, defeating Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson in the opening round, German’s Lena Duerr in the quarterfinals and Hansdotter in the semifinals.
Shiffrin has shown her versatility this season. She has won slalom world cups in Lienz, Austria, and Killington, Vermont; downhill at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada; giant slalom in Courchevel, France; and parallel slalom in Courchevel.
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.
