(Reuters) – American Mikaela Shiffrin tied the all-time mark for World Cup wins in a single discipline when she beat Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova to capture her 46th slalom victory on Sunday in Killington, Vermont.
Shiffrin trailed reigning overall World Cup champion Vlhova by 0.20 seconds after the first run but returned the fastest second run while her rival got wrong-footed early to drop into second place.
Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener finished third.
The victory brought 26-year-old Shiffrin level with Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark for the most World Cup wins in any single discipline.
Stenmark won 46 giant slalom races and 40 slaloms in a World Cup career lasting from 1973 to 1989. He also won two gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics.
“It was a big fight today,” two-times Olympic champion Shiffrin, who finished second to Vlhova in both slalom races last week in Finland, said through tears.
“I’m quite happy with how I skied the second (run) and a small mistake, not as big as Petra’s mistake, but just starting to bring back the fight and it means even more to do it in the second run.”
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; editing by Clare Fallon)
