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SUN VALLEY, Idaho (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin started the World Cup slalom season with a win. She closed it out the exact same way.
In between, a serious crash in the giant slalom, a difficult recovery, struggles with confidence, battles with post-traumatic stress disorder and finally rediscovering that winning form.
“This one has been quite a roller coaster,” Shiffrin said of her season. “There’s been some really thrilling moments and some moments where I questioned if I should even be in the sport.”
Shiffrin smoothly navigated a bumpy and rut-filled course to easily win the women's slalom Thursday at the World Cup finals.
No playing it safe for the American ski racing standout, either. The first-run leader, Shiffrin found another burst to finish in a combined time of 1 minute, 45.92 seconds and beat Lena Duerr of Germany by 1.13 seconds. Andreja Slokar of Slovenia took third.
Shiffrin glided through the course at Sun Valley with a large crowd cheering her through every gate.
Indeed, she heard them.
“Super helpful, but it’s also a level of pressure,” Shiffrin explained. “You can feel the energy and that’s really exciting, but you can also hear the kids or whoever it is lining the side of the course saying, ‘Come on Mikaela, you’ve got this. We want to see it.' Everybody’s so positive.
“But sometimes I'm like, ‘Just put it out of your mind. Put it away.’ In the end, I was standing in the start gate and I was thinking, ‘Do I ski this, somehow, like get to the finish and get valuable points, or do I take some risk?’ ... I heard everybody cheering and was like, ‘All right, (expletive) it.’"
It was an injury-marred season for Shiffrin, who competed in only the slalom at finals. The 30-year-old Shiffrin has missed four slalom races this season and that's kept her from retaining her title in the discipline. She still finished in fourth place in the slalom standings.
Croatian ski racer Zrinka Ljutic was 10th in Thursday's race — good enough to put the finishing touches on capturing the season-long slalom title. She won over Katharina Liensberger of Austria, with Camille Rast of Switzerland taking third.
The 21-year-old Ljutic earned last season’s “rising star” award and is showing that talent ahead of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
“It feels amazing,” Ljutic said of the slalom title. “It’s everything I’ve worked for, really, in my life.”
U.S. skier Paula Moltzan had a fast second run Thursday — finishing sixth — two days after a crash in the giant slalom. She wore a bandage on her chin.
The women's World Cup overall race saw Italy's Federica Brignone take first (1,594 points), Switzerland's Lara Gut-Behrami second (1,272) and Brignone's teammate Sofia Goggia finish third (931). The three didn't race on Thursday.
For Shiffrin, a painful season drew to a close. She’s worked her way back from a serious giant slalom crash in Killington, Vermont, in late November, where she suffered a deep puncture wound that caused severe trauma to her oblique muscles. The crash led to emotional trauma, too, leaving her with PTSD in the GS.
But she's in a better frame of mind ahead of the Olympics.
“This race and finishing with a good mentality, good intensity and really strong skiing, that’s going to help me for the full preparation,” Shiffrin said. “You get a taste of why we train so hard. That makes it a little bit easier to dive into the next months with a good attitude.”
This season included a memorable milestone for Shiffrin when she won her 100th World Cup race during a slalom in Italy on Feb. 23.
On Thursday, Shiffrin picked up World Cup win No. 101. Fittingly, there were kids in the crowd dressed in puppy outfits — a nod to Disney’s “101 Dalmatians.”
“I saw them on the jumbotron on the first run. I was like, ‘That’s so clever, but hopefully I don't mess it up,’” Shiffrin said with a laugh.
She wouldn't. Not even as the last women's racer on a deteriorating course. Then again, she trains on courses with similar conditions for moments just like this.
“We all just went, ‘Wow,’” said Shiffrin's coach, Karin Harjo, of the the final run as the racer reached the 500-point mark, which gives her better starting positions next season.
When she takes the slalom course, any slalom course, Shiffrin’s been tough to beat. She’s won four of the six World Cup slalom races she’s been in this season.
Over her career, Shiffrin has finished first, second or third in a World Cup slalom race in 89 of 118 starts, which is a 75.4% podium rate. She’s won slalom 64 times — a 54.2% victory rate.
“Her skiing is out of this world,” Ljutic said. “Coming back from this injury, this was a master class. I definitely have a lot to work on coming into next season.”
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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
