Mikaela Shiffrin dominated World Cup slalom on home snow in Colorado on Sunday, remaining perfect in the discipline throughout the Olympic season.
Shiffrin extended her slalom winning streak to four races after also winning the first two races of the season and the final race of last season. It was Shiffrin's record 104th World Cup victory and her 67th slalom victory, also extending the discipline's record.
Skiing through moderate snowfall, Shiffrin extended her lead in the first run and was 1.57 seconds ahead of Germany's Lena Duerr, who had moved up from ninth place after the first stage.
“Go Michaela, we love you,” read one of the signs fans held at the finish line in Copper Mountain, a half-hour drive from Shiffrin's hometown of Edwards, Colorado.
“I heard you guys from the beginning. Thank you,” Shiffrin told the crowd after his second run. “I felt great about this race. It was just amazing.”
Teenager Lara Kolturi from Albania moved up from fourth place after the first run to finish third, 1.85 back, despite an error early in the second run. Wendy Holdener finished fourth and Anna Svenn Larsson finished fifth.
It was Shiffrin's first World Cup win in Colorado since she won two slaloms in Aspen in November 2015. Overall, 12 of her 104 World Cup wins came in the United States. Shiffrin also won the slalom at the 2015 World Championships in Vail Beaver Creek, Colorado, in February of that year.
This is the fourth time in Shiffrin's career that she has won the first three slaloms of the season. She won the first five slaloms of the 2018–19 season, the first four of the 2016–17 season and the first three of the 2019–20 season.
Shiffrin is expected to be one of the stars of February's Milan Olympics in Cortina, where the women's alpine skiing competition will be held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. At the 2021 World Championships in Cortina, Shiffrin competed in four races and won four medals.
It was an emotional week for Shiffrin, who broke down in tears as she watched Alexander Aamodt's fiancée Kilda return to racing after a nearly two-year layoff with serious injuries in the Thanksgiving super-G at Copper Mountain on Thursday.
Shiffrin will compete again next weekend in two giant slaloms in Tremblant, Quebec, before returning to Europe for the rest of the season.
