Mikaela Shiffrin in action at the FIS World Ski Championships Women's Giant Slalom on Feb. 14, 2019 in Are, Sweden.
Mikaela Shiffrin got herself something shiny on Valentine’s Day: a world championship bronze medal in giant slalom.
The two-time Olympic champion and three-time medalist pocketed her latest hardware on Thursday on a windy day in Are, Sweden. It was so windy, in fact, that prior to the second run officials had to shut down the chair lift and get competitors to the start by either shuttle bus or snowcat.
The conditions certainly didn’t work against Shiffrin, however, who was in fourth place after the first run with a time of 1:01.35, .44 seconds behind leader Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany. Shiffrin clocked in even faster on run two, crossing the finish line in 1:01.00 and that bumped her up a spot while Rebensburg fell to second and took silver, with Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova winning her first world title.
This is Shiffrin’s second straight world championship medal in giant slalom after winning the silver in 2017 and her sixth world championship medal overall.
Shiffrin leads the overall world cup rankings with 1,694 points followed by Vlhova a distant second with 1,043 points. Shiffrin also leads the world cup standings in slalom, giant slalom and super-G.
The 23-year-old from Eagle-Vail, Colorado, earned her first medal of these world championships last week when she won her first-ever gold medal in super-G. She’ll be going for her fourth-straight slalom world title on Saturday.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
