CORTINA D’Ampezzo, Italy (AP) — American skier Mikaela Shifrin’s quest for a record-shattering victory at the 83rd World Cup will continue for at least another day.
Shiffrin finished fourth, half a second behind race winner Sofia Goggia, in Friday’s downhill on the track that will be used for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Shiffrin remains tied with former teammate Lindsey Vonn for the women’s record with 82 wins each.
Two more races are scheduled for Cortina over the weekend, with another downhill on Saturday followed by a Super G race on Sunday.
Joggia, who won gold and silver in the downhill in the last two Olympics, respectively, finished 0.13 seconds ahead of two-time world champion Elka Stoeheck, and 0.36 seconds ahead of Germany’s Kira Wedel.
Shiffrin was faster than Goggia through the first three checkpoints but finished 0.50 behind him.
Shiffrin had some difficulty landing the jump at the end of her run, standing up to regain her balance. But overall, she seemed pleased with her performance in a discipline she doesn’t often compete in, smiling and pumping her fist in the end zone.
A clip on Shiffrin’s right shoe also appears to have come undone while she was running, which may have reduced control of her skates.
Vonn broke the previous winning record, Annemarie Moser-Brühl’s mark of 62 victories, eight years earlier in Cortina.
Vonn retired four years ago when injuries cut short her career.
Shiffrin is also closing in on Ingmar Stenmark’s overall mark—both men and women—of 86 victories.
Stenmark competed in the 1970s and 1980s.
As usual, Goggia’s season has been hit or miss. She broke two fingers on her left hand during a downhill in St. Moritz, Switzerland, last month, then came back after quick surgery to win another downhill the next day.
Then she crashed badly in the Super-G last weekend in St. Anton, Austria, and sat out the next day as a precaution, despite medical exams that revealed no damage to her right knee.
But in this race, the Italian was perfect during the technical midsection where others struggled, gathering so much speed that she needed to raise her arms briefly down the track to regain her balance after a light bobble.
When she got to the end, however, Goggia seemed to know she’d done something special, nodding her head a few times as if to say “yeah, yeah” – although there were still several top favorites at the start.
Another female nominee, reigning Olympic champion Corinne Sutter, was the victim of an ugly fall near the end of her career. The Swiss skier fell hard on her left side after losing control during the jump but stopped before hitting the safety nets. After examining it briefly, Sutter got up and reached the end on her own.
Canada’s Maria-Michel Gagnon fell after performing the splits at high speed and then slid down the mountain and slammed into the air, prompting the safety air bag inside her suit to inflate and soften the blow as she landed. She also got backup.
With the 16th downhill win of her career, Goggia is tied with Katja Seizinger for fifth in the women’s discipline, which Vonn leads with 43 wins.
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