KRANJSKA GORA, Slovenia — The duel between Mikaela Shiffrin and her Swiss rival Camille Rast is shaping up nicely with 45 days to go until the women’s slalom race at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Rast ended Shiffrin’s six-race winning streak in World Cup slaloms Sunday, beating the American star by 0.14 seconds after clocking the fastest time in both runs at an event in Slovenia.
Rast, who is the slalom world champion, also led Shiffrin last week in Austria after the first leg but the American made up more than half a second on a deteriorating course to narrowly take the win.
On Sunday, though, Rast held on to her first-run lead for her fourth career win, and third in slalom, before being hugged by Shiffrin in the finish area.
“Her skiing is so strong, and it’s been building, building, building,” Shiffrin said about Rast. “The last races she had some mistakes that cost time. And today, how I saw her ski the first run, ah, I had to go 120% in order to have a shot. So, it was a big, big, amazing day for her.”
Shiffrin was still satisfied with her own skiing and celebrated by pumping her fist after finishing her final run, when Rast was yet to start.
“I had a really specific goal for my skiing for the second (run), a little bit technical thing, and I felt like I really accomplished that,” Shiffrin said.
“This was the hardest I could push. I pushed so hard, it was like a small mistake here and a small mistake there and I don’t think that cost time. That was just how hard I was trying. I could feel these turns that I wanted to feel.”
Sunday’s victory came one day after Rast earned her maiden giant slalom win on the same hill and dedicated that victory to the victims of the fire at a bar in Crans-Montana near her hometown of Vétroz.
“I gave everything I had this weekend. Double on the same weekend is quite amazing. I’m so happy,” Rast said, adding that “a lot of energy” was key to her triumph.
“It was a little bit a battle, but I had a lot of fun. And the slope, wow, was amazing, The preparation was top.”
The duo was far ahead of the rest of the field, with Rast’s teammate Wendy Holdener trailing by a massive 1.83 seconds in third for her first podium result in nearly a year.
Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzan in fourth was the only other racer finishing less than two seconds off the pace.
Shiffrin, who took slalom gold at the 2014 Olympics and holds four world titles in the discipline, won the final race of last season before taking the first five slaloms in the current campaign and raise her career tally to 69 wins in slalom and 106 overall, both World Cup records.
Defending slalom World Cup winner Zrinka Ljutic of Croatia didn’t finish for the fourth time in six races this season.
Italian prodigy Lara Colturi, competing for Albania, lost her balance and fell on the first run on a course set by her father and coach, Alessandro Colturi. She was on the podium in four of the previous five slaloms this season.
The next slalom is a night race on Jan. 13 in Flachau, where Rast triumphed last year and Shiffrin won five times in the past. The last slalom before the Olympics is on Jan. 25 in Czechia.
A downhill and a super-G are scheduled next weekend in another Austrian resort, Zauchensee.
There were no men’s World Cup races this weekend.
