A day after breaking her tie with Lindsey Vonn, Mikaela Shiffrin won again, moving two victories shy of the overall Alpine skiing World Cup record.
Shiffrin swept a pair of giant slaloms in Kronplatz, Italy, the last two days to give her 84 World Cup wins, taking Wednesday’s race by 82 hundredths of a second over Norwegian Ragnhild Mowinckel combining times from two runs.
“After yesterday, I was just so tired,” Shiffrin, who said she was awake at midnight, 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. after Tuesday’s milestone, told Austrian broadcaster ORF. “I felt nervous because I was tired. When I’m skiing tired, then I make mistakes. … In the first run, I thought I’m either going to go out of the course in the fourth gate, or it’s going to be a really good run. It ended up being a really good run.”
Swede Ingemar Stenmark won 86 times in the 1970s and ’80s.
Paula Moltzan was seventh on Wednesday and Nina O’Brien 10th. It’s the first time three U.S. women made the top 10 of a World Cup race in five years.
Three Americans made the top 10 of a World Cup technical race (giant slalom or slalom) for the first time since Dec. 3, 2005 (Bode Miller, Daron Rahlves, Erik Schlopy). From January 2017 to October 2020, Shiffrin was the only U.S. women to finish in the top 10 of any traditional World Cup slalom or giant slalom.
ALPINE SKIING: Full Results | Broadcast Schedule
What a run @MikaelaShiffrin charged again in @Kronplatz for a back to back victory 🤯#fisalpine pic.twitter.com/JRm70uhNHP
— FIS Alpine (@fisalpine) January 25, 2023
ON HER TURF: U.S. women’s Alpine skiing pioneer reflects on Shiffrin
Shiffrin can tie Stenmark as early as Sunday with two slaloms this weekend in Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic, site of Shiffrin’s first World Cup start at age 15 in 2011.
“Technically, it is possible,” she said. “I’m going out for some training tomorrow, and then going to try to get a really good, efficient, recovery day, and then we’ll see if I can put the energy on my slalom skis for two more races.
“It’s busy, and I’m kind of at an unfortunate time of my monthly cycle,” she continued with a smile and a laugh. “So I’m, like, more tired right now. So just normalize talking about that.”
After that, the record pursuit pauses for the world championships in France. World championships races do not count as World Cups.
Shiffrin has 10 wins in 21 starts this season, her most successful campaign since her record 17-victory season in 2018-19.
Her 19 career World Cup giant slalom wins are second in women’s history, one behind retired Swiss Vreni Schneider. Shiffrin’s 51 World Cup slalom wins are the most for any Alpine skier in any discipline.
“Between the second race in Kranjska Gora [two weeks ago] and these two races yesterday and today, it’s the best GS skiing I ever did,” she said, according to the International Ski Federation.
LAYDEN: Shiffrin’s numbers tell us a story we should already know
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Isabeau Levito won her first U.S. figure skating title at age 15, cementing her status as the new leading American woman to open the new Olympic cycle.
Levito, the world junior champion, tallied 223.33 points between two strong programs in San Jose, California. She distanced two-time U.S. champion Bradie Tennell, who went 19 months between competitions due to foot and ankle injuries in 2021 and 2022 and scored 213.12.
Tennell was just two hundredths behind Levito after Thursday’s short but had multiple jumping errors in the free skate.
Levito followed her as last to go in the free and nailed the most pressure-packed performance of her young career, including the hardest jump combination done of the entire field. She didn’t receive a single negative mark from a judge for her 19 technical elements in her two programs.
Moments later, she was in tears backstage.
FIGURE SKATING NATIONALS: Full Scores | Broadcast Schedule
“I was just so proud of myself for staying so calm and staying so focused, doing exactly what I aimed to do,” Levito, who hasn’t finished off the podium in more than 20 events dating to November 2016, said on NBC. “I’m ready to start bouncing off the walls.”
Amber Glenn, 23, placed third and will likely become the oldest U.S. women’s singles skater to make her world championships debut in at least 45 years. Glenn botched her 11th attempt to join the list of U.S. women to land a clean triple Axel (tally according to Skatingscores.com) but still moved up from fourth after the short program, passing Starr Andrews.
Last year, Glenn entered nationals as the fourth-ranked U.S. woman and a hopeful for the three-woman Olympic team. She placed 14th in the short program, competing unknowingly with COVID-19, then tested positive and withdrew before the free skate.
In 2021, Glenn was the U.S. silver medalist, yet passed over for a spot on the two-woman world team in favor of the more experienced Karen Chen, who finished 35 hundredths behind Glenn at those nationals.
Levito, Tennell and Glenn are expected to make up the team for March’s world championships, decided by a committee.
Gracie Gold, a two-time U.S. champion who was fifth after the short program, popped a pair of planned triple Lutzes and dropped to eighth.
Nationals continue Saturday with the free dance and pairs’ free skate, live on NBC Sports and Peacock.
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Full scores and results from the 2023 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose …
Women’s Results
Gold: Isabeau Levito — 223.33
Silver: Bradie Tennell — 213.12
Bronze: Amber Glenn — 207.44
4. Starr Andrews — 188.24
5. Josephine Lee — 187.68
6. Lindsay Thorngren — 187.19
7. Clare Seo — 175.60
8. Gracie Gold — 173.98
9. Ava Ziegler — 167.70
10. Sonja Hilmer — 166.49
11. Gabriella Izzo — 166.40
12. Ting Cui — 161.27
13. Audrey Shin — 161.12
14. Lindsay Wang — 154.91
15. Michelle Lee — 145.28
16. Elsa Cheng — 138.13
17. Alexa Gasparotto — 129.41
WD. Hanna Harrell
Men’s Short Program
1. Ilia Malinin — 110.36
2. Jason Brown — 100.25
3. Tomoki Hiwatashi — 85.43
4. Liam Kapeikis — 82.27
5. Andrew Torgashev — 78.78
6. Maxim Naumov — 77.71
7. Jimmy Ma — 73.88
8. Goku Endo — 73.45
9. Samuel Mindra — 71.36
10. Yaroslav Paniot — 70.87
11. Camden Pulkinen — 69.47
12. Matthew Nielsen — 67.98
13. Joonsoo Kim — 67.45
14. Daniel Martynov — 64.04
15. Will Annis — 63.46
16. Dinh Tran — 60.63
17. Mitchell Friess — 59.14
18. Joseph Klein — 58.38
Pairs’ Short Program
1. Alexa Knierim/Brandon Frazier — 81.96
2. Emily Chan/Spencer Howe — 66.86
3. Ellie Kam/Danny O’Shea —- 65.75
4. Valentina Plazas/Maximiliano Fernandez — 63.45
5. Sonia Baram/Danil Tioumentsev —- 63.12
6. Katie McBeath/Nathan Bartholomay —- 56.96
7. Nica Digerness/Mark Sadusky — 50.72
8. Maria Mokhova/Ivan Mokhov —- 46.96
9. Grace Hanns / Danny Neudecker — 46.81
10. Linzy Fitzpatrick/Keyton Bearinger — 45.27
11. Nina Ouellette/Rique Newby-Estrella — 43.99
Rhythm Dance
1. Madison Chock/Evan Bates — 91.90
2. Caroline Green/Michael Parsons — 81.40
3. Emilea Zingas/Vadym Kolesnik — 78.18
4. Christina Carreira/Anthony Ponomarenko — 77.37
5. Lorraine McNamara/Anton Spiridonov — 76.23
6. Emily Bratti/Ian Somerville — 75.91
7. Eva Pate/Logan Bye — 75.52
8. Isabella Flores/Ivan Desyatov — 73.91
9. Oona Brown/Gage Brown — 72.80
10. Katarina Wolfkostin/Jeffrey Chen — 69.05
11. Angela Ling/Caleb Wein — 68.53
12. Leah Krauskopf/YuanShi Jin — 52.59
13. Cara Murphy/Joshua Levitt — 50.88
14. Caroline Depietri/TJ Carey — 48.28
WD. Raffaella Koncius/Alexey Shchepetov
FIGURE SKATING NATIONALS: Broadcast Schedule | New Era for U.S.
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