CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Mikaela Shiffrin’s pursuit of a record-breaking 83rd World Cup victory is still on hold.
Shiffrin finished seventh, 0.39 seconds Slovenian behind winner Ilka Stuhec in a downhill Saturday on the course that will be used for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Shiffrin therefore remained tied with former teammate Lindsey Vonn for the women’s record at 82 wins each, but races her better events next week, starting with a Sunday super-G in Cortina.
“I am enjoying each race and the process is like an opportunity,” Shiffrin said. “I don’t feel that I have to win again. Of course I care. I want to win. That’s obvious. But I don’t feel that I have to win; that I’m supposed to win. I’m just here trying to figure out the track like all the other racers on the course and see if I can do my best and if it’s good enough to be close to the top.
“Maybe sometimes it is the fastest run. And that’s that’s the best place to be. When I look forward I see opportunity, but I don’t see pressure.”
Season-long downhill leader Sofia Goggia, who won Friday’s race in Cortina, fell midway through her run but did not appear injured.
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Swiss Corinne Suter, who succeeded Goggia as Olympic downhill champion last year, did not start after an ugly fall on Friday that she skied away from. The Swiss federation said medical exams revealed no serious injuries but she didn’t feel 100 percent fit and would sit out Saturday’s downhill and Sunday’s super-G as a precautionary measure.
Shiffrin finished fourth in the first of two downhills in Cortina on Friday.
Stuhec, the 2017 and 2019 World champion in downhill, finished 0.26 ahead of Kajsa Vickhoff Lie of Norway and 0.34 ahead of Elena Curtoni of Italy.
Stuhec hadn’t won a World Cup race since Dec. 2018.
The Olympia delle Tofane course was shortened due to wind, removing the course’s most characteristic section, the Tofana Schuss or “chute” between two walls of rock.
Goggia lost control while landing a jump, got twisted around, slammed through a gate and slid down the mountain before quickly getting up and skiing down to the finish, where she waved to the crowd to say she was OK.
The safety air bag under Goggia’s racing suit inflated during her crash, which may have helped soften her crash landing.
“I really just made an error. It wasn’t a concentration lapse,” Goggia said. “It went well in that nothing happened.”
Goggia broke two fingers in her left hand during a downhill in St. Moritz, Switzerland, last month, then returned after a quick surgery to win another downhill a day later. She also crashed nastily in a super-G last weekend in St. Anton, Austria, but avoided injury.
“Blow after blow but tomorrow I’ll race,” Goggia said.
Austrian skier Nina Ortlieb also fell hard while landing a jump and ended up in the safety nets immediately before Goggia’s run.
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