Shiffrin and Vonn To Race World Champs GS

VAIL/BEAVER CREEK, CO (Feb. 11. 2015)—Tuesday’s team event marked a transition at the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. The gears are shifting, as the athletes trade speed events for technical races. The downhill and super G races are in the U.S. Ski Team’s rearview mirror, and the athletes are now focused on the upcoming giant slalom and slalom races. On deck, women’s GS on Thursday.

Mikaela Shiffrin (Vail, CO) will headline the American skiers in the GS. Shiffrin, the 19-year-old Vail local, has a skiing resume that belies her young age, with 12 wins and 21 podiums in four seasons on the World Cup, one Olympic gold medal, and a World Championship medal during her meteoric rise into the World Cup elite.

“I was a little nervous in the first run [of Tuesday’s team event] and I hate being nervous,” says Shiffrin. “Second run, I was like, ‘what’s the point?’ If I’m going to be nervous and ski tense, then I shouldn’t even be here out. So I loosened up and put my best effort out there and that’s what I’m going to do for the GS.”

But what's piqued World Cup fans’ interest is that this is the first time Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) will be facing Shiffrin in a World Cup event. Although the two have trained many times together, they have not directly competed im many years. Both have served as the team’s top-ranking female athletes, however, neither is a GS specialist. Vonn focuses on speed events and Shiffrin has been unstoppable in slalom.

Lindsey Vonn's skis to her last GS win in Maribor, Slovenia in 2013. (Getty Images/AFP)

Although neither is necessarily focused on GS, both have won GS World Cups in the past. Most recently, Shiffrin took the win in Soelden, Austria in October and was third in Kuehtai in Tirol, Austria. She has podiumed four times in the past. Vonn’s last GS was in Maribor, Slovenia in 2013, which she won—one of her three career GS victories.

It’ll be a fascinating throwdown, with Shiffrin and Vonn competing against not only each other, but the fastest women in the world—such as Austrians Anna Fenninger, Eva-Maria Brem and Kathrin Zettel and the indomitable Tina Maze of Slovenia—who will also be looking for a World Championships win.

Joining Shiffrin and Vonn in representing the U.S. in GS will be Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, CA)—who took the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics GS gold—and Megan McJames (Park City, UT).

The two-run giant slalom is set to begin to begin at 10:15 a.m. (EST) on Thursday, February 12. Universal Sports Network will be live streaming the first run at 12:00 p.m. EST and the second run will be streaming live on NBCSN at 4:00 p.m. (EST).

HIGHLIGHTS

• Shiffrin is the reigning Olympic, World Cup, and World Champion in slalom. She was sixth in the Schladming World Championships GS.
• Shiffrin won her first career World Cup giant slalom in Soelden, Austria earlier this year.
• Vonn has won 64 World Cup titles in her career, three of those are in GS.
• Mancuso won the giant slalom at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy.