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Mikaela Shiffrin loves St. Moritz—the lovely Swiss mountain village, the sun-splashed (most of the time) high-alpine terrain, and she loves this mountain’s super-G course. In fact, she’s scored half of her 10 World Cup super-G podiums on the St. Moritz Corviglia speed course.
So it comes as no huge surprise that on a classical clear St. Moritz day, with only a few wispy clouds in the sky, the 27-year-old American won the World Cup super-G, beating Friday’s downhill winner Elena Curtoni from Italy by 0.12 of a second and France’s Romane Miradoli by 0.40.
The win marks Shiffrin’s 77th World Cup victory and it came on the heels of two good downhill races, where she took sixth on Friday (Dec. 16), then fourth on Saturday (Dec. 17).
Related: Italian downhiller wins second St. Moritz downhill 24 hours after surgery
“I felt very good the last couple of days,” said Shiffrin. “But you never know. The super-G especially, you have to push so hard, and it’s always on the limit. Actually, you’re pushing so hard maybe you’re not going to finish. So I knew what my tactic should be, and I was not thinking about what was going to happen at the finish until I got there.”
“It was a very, very good run,” she added. “So I’m happy with that.”
Sunday’s win may not be surprising given Shiffrin’s history in the St. Moritz super-G, but it is remarkable for an athlete who specializes in the technical disciplines. Two-thirds of Shiffrin’s World Cup wins have come in slalom, with only five in super-G. But she loves skiing speed and has an affinity for super-G.
“It is maybe the event that comes the most naturally for me,” she said.
Competing in the two downhills earlier in the weekend also aided Shiffrin’s confidence in super-G. It’s the first time that she had competed in downhill on the St. Moritz course, and the races helped her get into a good flow.
“It’s nice that I skied the downhill this time to know just how it’s going to feel on the terrain,” she said before the super-G. “Of course it’s different with super-G, but I have a feeling of speed now, so I’m not afraid of the speed today.”
The other Americans did not fare as well as Shiffrin. Breezy Johnson—fifth in Friday’s downhill—finished 34th, Keely Cashman 40th, and Lauren Macuga 41st. Bella Wright and Tricia Mangan, who both scored World Cup points in the St. Moritz downhills—didn’t finish the super-G.
From St. Moritz, Shiffrin heads to Austria for the Holidays, where she plans to see boyfriend Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who’s been on fire in men’s downhill this season and sits #2 in the overall World Cup standings. Her next World Cup stop is Semmering, Austria, for two giant slaloms and a slalom on December 27-29. She hopes a week of skiing speed will help the tech disciplines.
“What I learned this week is this instinct to always go down the hill,” said Shiffrin. “I think that can help me with my giant slalom and maybe even a bit with the slalom, to know if I can do it in downhill and super-G, then I think I can do it in GS and slalom.”
Shiffrin is 105 points ahead of yesterday’s downhill winner Sofia Goggia in the overall World Cup standings. But she is tied with Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener in the slalom standings—a title Shiffrin has won six times but not since 2019. The past three seasons, she has finished second (to Petra Vlhova in 2020 and 2022 and Katharina Leinsberger in 2021).
“My slalom is good,” acknowledged Shiffrin, then added with a laugh that she wanted to “see if I can make a good threat for Wendy.”