There’s no stopping Mikaela Shiffrin. At the ongoing Audi FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup 2023/24, the 28-year-old has come all girded up. After her first World Cup downhill run at St. Moritz, Switzerland, the 28-year-old extended her record to 91 World Cup wins. But as the year is rounding up, the Olympian stands atop with her giant slalom win in Lienz, Austria. Moreover, her second race in the Austrian town was also nothing short of stunning.

As the second day in Lienz kicked off, it was the slalom title that the women were rooting for. And there stood Shiffrin, full of dexterity, overshadowing the Austrian slopes in the slalom event. Moving past her German counterpart, Lena Duerr, the Olympian smoothly leaped 2.34 seconds ahead and won with a combined 1:48.75. Two wins back-to-back in the same venue demands a walk down history.

 Shiffrin is the unofficial queen of Lienz

Audi FIS Ski World Cup took to their Instagram handle to celebrate the reigning champion of the 2023 Alpine Skiing World Cup. Captioning the post as “Same place, same disciplines, same results! Two wins in 2019 and two wins in 2023. Congratulations @mikaelashiffrin.” effortlessly juxtaposing her wins in the same venue. In 2019, at the same venue, she chalked her second Lienz win on the same date. With the second day slalom win on December 2019, she had marked her 64th World Cup victory.

Her most worthy rival of the Austrian slalom, Petra Vlhova, stood with a silver behind Shiffrin by 0.61 seconds in 2019. But this time, despite her double slalom titles, she was moved to the fifth, 3.24 seconds behind Mikaela Shiffrin. In 2019, she had said after the race, “When I saw Petra go in the second run…I was like, oh, no, I can’t ski it that fast.” But this year, she acknowledged her prowess over her rivals instead, and shed light on it.

Shiffrin’s triumph isn’t a one-day effort

After the slalom win and just 7 wins away from making it a 100, the 28-year-old looked back at her slow steps towards success. Though teammate Paula Moltzan lost her chance of stepping on the podium by a fraction, Shiffrin thinks that the race was ‘insane’. Speaking of it, she said, “Yeah, insane. Today was a very special day for me. I felt perfect on the skis, so super happy.”

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She further added, “For the last couple of years we’ve been really building through the season to this point (around Christmas) and somehow it clicks, I guess.” She concluded her speech with “Very different timing and different flow, I just had a really good plan.” Just before the New Year hits, the 7X overall World Cup champ has prospered well. Now, the next slalom and giant slalom event is scheduled on 6–7 January 2024.

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