Mikaela Shiffrin crossed the finish line, looked up at the board and fell to the snow. Nearly three months after a much worse kind of fall cost her a large chunk of her season and put history on hold, this one was celebratory.
The American Alpine skiing star on Sunday won the 100th World Cup race of her storied career, topping the podium in a slalom in Sestriere, Italy, less than a month after she returned from an injury that kept her out of competition for 60 days and slowed her march toward history.
Shiffrin led after the first run and won in a combined 1:50.33, 0.61 seconds ahead of Croatia’s Zrinka Ljutić. Fellow American Paula Moltzan took third, 0.64 back. It’s the fifth career World Cup podium for Moltzan, who won giant slalom bronze at the world championships 10 days ago.
“I think it’s pretty special to share it with Paula,” Shiffrin said after the race. “I could hear everybody cheering from the start when she went, and I thought, ‘OK, it’s like a day of training. We just keep pushing.’ … It made it achievable.”
Mikaela Shiffrin and Paula Moltzan celebrate Sunday’s podium finishes in the World Cup slalom race in Sestriere, Italy. (Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images)
No other Alpine skier has hit 100 World Cup wins. Shiffrin…
