The three-time overall World Cup champion, American Mikaela Shiffrin finished second behind Romane Miradoli Saturday in the 30th super-G event at Lenzerheide, Switzerland, to take the sole lead in the Alpine Ski World Cup standings.
Despite being unable to medal in six events at the recent Winter Olympics, Shiffrin said “this is really great today, that’s a positive thing of course, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I finally just enjoyed skiing for a day.”
Tennis legend Roger Federer, who owns a home nearby, congratulated Shiffrin and greeted competitors at the bottom of the course.
“Everybody was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to ski really fast!’” said Shiffrin. “It’s pretty surreal to see that he’s here watching a ski race and quite exciting for us.”
Shiffrin was tied with defending overall points champion Petra Vlhova after 29 races, and finished 0.38 seconds behind the underdog Maradoli from France for second. While Vlhova finished 3.31 seconds behind Maradoli placing 18th.
Vlhova fell 67 points in the overall standings behind Shiffrin. Their duel will resume Sunday at the giant slalom.
“After the last couple of weeks I really appreciate this,” said Shiffrin. “This is really great today, that’s a positive thing of course, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I finally just enjoyed skiing for a day”
Eight World Cup events remain this month, and the final super-G of the season is on March 17 at Courchevel, France, at the World Cup finals.
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