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American standout Mikaela Shiffrin dominated World Cup slalom on home snow in Colorado on Sunday and has remained 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 67th slalom victory, also extending the discipline's record.
Laurence Saint-Germain of Saint-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Quebec, finished 15th.
Skiing through moderate snowfall, Shiffrin extended her lead in the first run and was a full 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 very beginning. Thank you,” Shiffrin told the crowd after his second run. “I felt great in this race. It was just amazing.”
Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States finishes first in the women's slalom at the Copper Mountain World Cup in Colorado. Shiffrin scored her 67th World Cup slalom win and 104th overall, both records. The skiing star won the first three slaloms of the season for the fourth time in his career.
Teenager Lara Kolturi from Albania moved up from fourth place after the first run to finish third, 1.85 behind, despite a big error early in the second run. Wendy Holdener finished fourth and Anna Svenn Larsson finished fifth.
It was Shiffrin's first win in Colorado in more than a decade, 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.
Laurence St. Germain of Saint-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Quebec, finished 15th in the women's slalom at the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup stop at Copper Mountain in Colorado.
Other Americans who finished were Paula Molzahn, who finished in eighth place, and Nina O'Brien, who finished in 26th place.
Shiffrin is expected to be one of the stars of the Cortina Olympics, which run from Feb. 6 to 22 in Milan, where the women's alpine skiing event 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 fiancée Alexander Aamodt Kield 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.
