FLACHAU, Austria (Reuters) – Mikaela Shiffrin had tears in her eyes after capping an emotional few days with a record-extending 94th Alpine skiing World Cup win in a floodlit night slalom in Flachau, Austria, on Tuesday.
The American had missed weekend races in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee due to illness and then made a trip to Switzerland when partner Aleksander Aamodt-Kilde was airlifted to hospital after crashing in the Wengen downhill on Saturday.
“I’m really proud of this evening and very thankful for my whole team,” said Shiffrin after coming from 0.07 behind to beat Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova by 0.27 and secure her fifth career win in Flachau.
“These last days have been very challenging. They’ve been so supportive and helped me go see Aleks.
“The last three days I feel like I lived a lifetime,” added the overall World Cup leader.
The win was Shiffrin’s record-extending 57th in slalom and she now leads the World Cup standings in the discipline by 25 points. Shiffrin and Vlhova have won all the slaloms so far this season and 13 of the last 14.
Shiffrin also tied Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 81 slalom podiums with her sixth win of the season.
Sweden’s Olympic giant slalom champion Sara Hector finished third, her first World Cup slalom podium.
The next races this weekend are on home snow for Vlhova in the Slovakian resort of Jasna.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Toby Davis)
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