Mikaela Shiffrin equaled Lindsey Vonn’s women’s record with her 137th Alpine World Cup podium and finished third in slalom at the World Cup finals in Andorra on Saturday.
Shiffrin, who is competing for the second time since she broke Ingemar Stenmark’s career record for Alpine World Cup wins last Saturday, finished 86 hundredths behind Olympic gold medalist Petra Vlhova of Slovakia, combining times from two heats.
Shiffrin was fourth after the first run. The top two after the first run stayed in that order after the second run – Vlhova, followed by Leona Popovic, who got on the podium for the first time (the best World Cup result for a Croatian in 16 years).
“Every single race I feel the weight of having to be one of the best in the world, no matter the day, which is actually quite a privilege, but some days it’s pretty hard,” Shiffrin said, according to the International Ski Federation ( FIS). “But today it didn’t feel difficult. It just felt like a really good opportunity.”
Six of the 22 skiers came out of the second run on soft snow.
In Shiffrin’s previous race at the season finale, she was 14th in Thursday’s Super-G, which is not one of her main events.
ALPINE SKIING: Full Results | broadcast schedule
Shiffrin clinched her 137th podium in her 248th start, meaning she has finished in the top three in 55 percent of her World Cup races since making her debut aged 15 in 2011.
The only men with more podiums in the Alpine World Cup are Sweden’s Stenmark (155) and Austria’s Marcel Hirscher (138).
Shiffrin’s first chance to break her tie with Vonn comes in Sunday’s giant slalom, the final race of the season, live on Peacock.
Shiffrin, who broke Vonn’s career winning record of 82 women in January, claimed season titles in the overall, giant slalom and slalom ahead of the final.
Also on Saturday, Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt won the men’s giant slalom by 2.11 seconds – the widest margin in a men’s World Cup race in four years – for his 13th World Cup win this season, setting the single-season record gentlemen one.
He also achieved 2,042 points for the season, breaking Austria’s Hermann Maier’s men’s record of 2,000 points in a 1999–2000 season.
Slovenia’s Tina Maze holds the overall record of 2,414 points from 2012-13.
“We celebrated hard on Thursday,” said Odermatt after his victory in the Super-G World Cup final, according to the FIS. “Today wasn’t easy because of those damn 2,000 points. I really wanted to be on the podium today. So, another win, two seconds left, I don’t know what to say.”
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