(Reuters) – Mikaela Shiffrin will look to move further into uncharted territory this weekend in Killington, Vermont where the American skiing great is seeking a record-extending 100th career World Cup win.
Shiffrin began the season needing three victories to reach the century mark on the World Cup circuit and set herself up to accomplish the feat on home snow following back-to-back slalom victories in Finland and Austria the last two weeks.
The two-time Olympic gold medallist will have two chances to reach the century mark this weekend in Killington with a giant slalom scheduled for Saturday and a slalom on Sunday.
Shiffrin has an impressive Killington track record, having won the slalom event in six of the seven years it has been held there, but the 29-year-old is trying to not let her bid to reach the milestone distract her.
“I guess there’s a bit of pressure around it, but I’ll try to ignore that,” said Shiffrin, who has won the last six slaloms she competed in dating back to last January.
“If it happens, it’s wonderful. If it doesn’t happen, nothing to cry about in the grand scheme. I hope to have a really good performance in front of the home crowd.”
Competing at Killington, where the giant slalom starts at 10 a.m. ET (1500 GMT) on Saturday, will be like a hometown race for Shiffrin given she trained early in her career at nearby Burke Mountain Academy.
Shiffrin has reached the giant slalom podium three times in Killington but never won in her six starts.
In the only giant slalom contested so far this season, Shiffrin led the first run at the season opener in Austria last month before dropping back to fifth place after managing only the 27th-fastest time in the second run.
Shiffrin missed several weeks after injuring her knee in a high-speed crash in January while competing in the World Cup downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo and announced in October that she would drop the discipline from her schedule for this season.
But since returning from injury in March, Shiffrin has shown no signs of rust. She closed last season in spectacular fashion with a pair of slalom wins before adding another two to her haul this month.
In January 2023, Shiffrin passed compatriot Lindsey Vonn by winning her 83rd World Cup race, the most by a female skier.
Less than two months later Shiffrin established herself as the most successful Alpine skier in World Cup history, male or female, when she topped retired Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark’s decades-old record of 86 World Cup victories.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Toby Davis)
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