American Mikaela Shiffrin came within 0.6 seconds of equaling Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 World Cup victories, placing second in the second slalom run at the Czech resort of Spindleruv Mlyn behind Germany's Lena Dürr.
Shiffrin clearly dominated the first descent, gaining a lead of 0.67 seconds over Dürr, who was second. In the second round, the American tried to manage that difference without risking too much, but 6 hundredths of a second made her miss her goal.
The American made the fourteenth time in the second round, losing her chances of victory. The third place in the test went to the Croatian Zrinka Ljutic, 49 hundredths of the winner.
After a dominated first run and almost seven tenths of a second ahead of Dürr, Shiffrin ran out of energy in the second grip, to miss just six hundredths of a second behind the German.
It must be said that on Sunday he contested a seventh race in ten days, after the speed tests at Cortina d'Ampezzo (Italy), and the technical tests at Kronplatz (Italy) and Spindleruv Mlyn.
"It took me a long time and I risked everything. It's crazy to have realized that today," commented Lena Dürr, who had claimed her first victory in the parallel slalom ten years ago in Moscow in 2013, after the race.
“(Shiffrin's) lead was quite big, so I didn't think it was still possible to win today. But I tried to put everything. I did very well in the last few races, we knew it was possible”, he added. into the microphone of the German public television ZDF.
At 27, Shiffrin has yet to match Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 wins. For that he will have to wait and he still has eleven races left, including four in technique, this season to achieve it.
Small consolation prize for the skier from Vail (Colorado): on Sunday she won her seventh balloon in the small slalom, since Holdener, who was eliminated on the first run, and Vlhova, only 13th on Sunday, are 255 points behind the standings of the Slalom World Cup, two races from the end.
In the overall World Cup standings, Shiffrin now has 1,697 points, 731 more than Vlhova. With eleven races to go in the season, he has already placed one hand and three fingers on a fifth large glass globe.
Shiffrin will now be able to breathe a little next week, before heading to the French Alps and the resorts of Courchevel and Méribel, for the 2023 World Cup (February 6-19).
He will aim for a fifth world title in slalom and a first in giant slalom by the end of the fortnight, but will begin on February 6 with the defense of his world title in combined, the only one he had brought back from Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2021. .
