{"id":1317847,"date":"2020-01-22T19:26:29","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T02:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/?p=471913"},"modified":"2020-01-23T07:55:58","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T14:55:58","slug":"shiffrin-enters-bulgarian-world-cup-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/shiffrin-enters-bulgarian-world-cup-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Shiffrin enters Bulgarian World Cup events"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Yes, the red gates got Mikaela Shiffrin during a World Cup parallel giant slalom in Sestriere, Italy, on Sunday, but as New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick might say, “It’s on to Bulgaria.” (Probably not.) <\/strong>
Marco Trovati | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Welcome to Bulgaria, Mikaela.<\/p>\n

Mikaela Shiffrin apparently will be racing in speed events in Bansko for the first time in her career, she announced on Twitter.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

\u201cHey everybody, It\u2019s Mikaela Shiffrin. I\u2019m so excited to be in Bansko. It\u2019s my first time here, first time racing here. So I\u2019m super excited for these races and I hope you are too and I hope you enjoy the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presumably, the three-time defending World Cup champion will compete in both Saturday\u2019s downhill and Sunday\u2019s super-G. Downhill training runs are scheduled for today and Friday. Shiffrin is wearing the No. 20 bib for today\u2019s training run.<\/p>\n

Sestriere strangeness<\/h2>\n

Shiffrin is coming off a bizarre weekend of giant slalom and parallel GS in Sestriere, Italy. In Saturday\u2019s GS, She finished 1-hundredth of a second off the pace \u2014 and finished third.<\/a> Slovakia\u2019s Petra Vlhova and Italy\u2019s Federica Brignone shared the win.<\/p>\n

Shiffrin is pretty familiar with a photo finish in World Cup races. She\u2019s tied twice for a win in her career on the World Cup.  She and Vlhova were deadlocked on the top step during last year\u2019s Maribor, Slovenia, giant slalom on Feb. 1. The previous occasion before that was Soelden on Oct. 24, 2015, also a GS, and it was Shiffrin and Anna (nee Fenninger), Veith.<\/p>\n

The parallel GS on Sunday was the headscratcher. Shiffrin was the fastest in qualification but got knocked out during the Round of 16, officially finishing ninth.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t like to talk about luck playing a role-even yesterday, .01 out, I feel like that was in my control. Today I\u2019d say it\u2019s a day where luck plays a role\u2026it IS fun and people like to watch it. it\u2019s just a work in progress to make it the best it can be.\u201d
\u2014@MikaelaShiffrin<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/PLJe9Q3dOf<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) January 19, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Shiffrin is the model of avoiding all controversy in the press and in social media. Her statement via the U.S. Ski Team on Twitter was \u201cI don\u2019t like to talk about luck playing a role-even yesterday, .01 out, I feel like that was in my control. Today I\u2019d say it\u2019s a day where luck plays a role \u2026 it IS fun and people like to watch it. it\u2019s just a work in progress to make it the best it can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ellipses are important here because what she said in between those sentences, according to Yahoo! Sports was, \u201cBut these two courses are not the same at all. I\u2019m a little bitter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shiffrin was referring to the blue and red courses used in the knockout stage of Sunday\u2019s race. By the results in the single-elimination \u2014 17 winners emerged from the blue course, while just three came from the red one \u2014 it appeared that the blue gates were just a faster path. Shiffrin raced on the red course and was eliminated by the eventual winner, France\u2019s Claire Direz, on the blue.<\/p>\n

Need for speed<\/h2>\n

Tactfully put, Shiffrin didn\u2019t get the breaks last weekend, which is somewhat a theme for the season. Coming off a ridiculous 2018-19 campaign, where just about everything did go right \u2014 19 wins in 29 starts between the World Cup and the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships and go down the list \u2014 not everything is so smooth this year.<\/p>\n

Anyone expecting Shiffrin to win 17 World Cups \u2014 a new record \u2014 again and win the super-G, GS and slalom globes once more was clearly expecting too much.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to repeat a performance, whatever the sport. In fairness, Shiffrin isn\u2019t like an NFL team that won the Super Bowl and is now 7-9 and out of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Shiffrin leads the overall over Vlhova, 975-726, holds the slalom points advantage, is second in GS and a surprising sixth in super-G. But back to the overall, 192 of the 249-point lead Shiffrin maintains come from speed events.<\/p>\n

While she hasn\u2019t popped off a win in speed events this season, her participation has been valuable in her quest to four-peat as the World Cup champion. Finish in the top 30, which presumably means just getting down the hill in one piece for Shiffrin, gain points and build on her lead. That\u2019s the goal for the weekend. Everything else is gravy.<\/p>\n

So welcome to Bulgaria, Mikaela.<\/p>\n

via:: Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, the red gates got Mikaela Shiffrin during a World Cup parallel giant slalom in Sestriere, Italy, on Sunday, but as New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick might say, “It’s on to Bulgaria.” (Probably not.) Marco Trovati | AP Welcome to Bulgaria, Mikaela. Mikaela Shiffrin apparently will be racing in speed events in Bansko for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 04:11:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1317855,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317847\/revisions\/1317855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}