KILLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin’s winning margins just get bigger and bigger in World Cup slaloms.
One weekend after finishing 1.78 seconds ahead of her opponents in Finland, Shiffrin was a massive 2.29 clear of her biggest rival, Petra Vlhova, in the United States on Sunday.
Shiffrin’s success for a fourth straight year at Killington was the 62nd World Cup win of her career — tied for second on the all-time women’s list.
The 24-year-old American drew level with Annemarie Moser-Proell, the Austrian downhill great of the 1970s, and now trails only Lindsey Vonn’s 82 wins.
“The records keep going, don’t they?” Shiffrin said, laughing. “We’re just doing the best we can every day. When it pays off and it shows in these kinds of records and making history like that, it is special for sure.”
Shiffrin took a 1.13-second first-run lead over Vlhova and more than doubled it second time down a windswept Super Star course in -6 Celsius (21 Fahrenheit) temperatures.
Standing calmly in the finish area to check the leaderboard, Shiffrin waved to a noisy crowd and gestured as though she had been close to the limits of staying on the course.
Anna Swenn Larsson was third, trailing 2.73 behind Shiffrin. No other skier was within three seconds of Shiffrin.
Shiffrin’s record-extending 42nd win in World Cup slaloms, for men or women, followed a familiar path.
Vlhova was runner-up to Shiffrin in six World Cup events last season, and Swenn Larsson took silver when Shiffrin won her fourth straight slalom title at the world championships in February.
Wendy Holdener was the distant runner-up to Shiffrin last weekend at Levi, Finland, and sat third after the morning run Sunday. However, the Swiss racer’s challenge in the afternoon lasted just seconds before her skis straddled the second gate.
Shiffrin’s maximum 200 points from the first two slalom races this season has created a 192-point lead already in the overall standings for the three-time defending champion.
Second place is held by Michele Gisin of Switzerland, who placed ninth Sunday, 4.28 seconds behind Shiffrin.
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