Stop the presses. Mikaela Shiffrin did not win during Friday’s World Cup giant slalom in Spindleruv Mlyn in the Czech Republic.
In her first action on the tour in nearly three weeks, Shiffrin finished third (2 minutes, 25.29 seconds) behind the winner, Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova (2:24.69), and Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg (2:24.80).
While the expectations for Shiffrin have gone beyond ridiculous — that not winning a World Cup race prompts questions like, “What’s wrong with Shiffrin?” — the really good news on Friday is that the Vail racer all but clinched her first giant slalom World Cup title.
France’s Tessa Worley, Shiffrin’s closest pursuer in the discipline, finished seventh on Friday. With the 60 points from her third-place finish, Shiffrin expanded her GS lead to 97 points over Vlhova and 105 over Worley. For the uninitiated, a racer earns 100 points for World Cup win and there is only one GS race left in the season a week from Sunday in the World Cup Finals in Soldeu, Andorra.
Shiffrin would have to DNF, while Vlhova would need to win for the globe to flip to the Slovakian. For the record, Shiffrin has not DNF’d in a race in more than a year.
This story will be updated.