Shiffrin Ninth in Lake Louise Downhill

In just her seventh career FIS Ski World Cup downhill start, Mikaela Shiffrin (Avon, Colo.) finished ninth to lead three Americans scoring World Cup points in Friday’s downhill at Lake Louise, Alberta. Laurenne Ross (Bend, Ore.) was 26th, and Alice Merryweather (Hingham, Mass.) picked up her first career World Cup top-30 downhill result in 27th.

Austria’s Nicole Schmidhofer won her first career World Cup race as Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin was second. Germany’s Kira Weidle posted her first career World Cup podium, finishing third.

"My overall feeling was pretty good today," Shiffrin reflected. "I was really feeling aggressive and prepared, but one thing I still have to work on is being able to still stay smooth and aggressive with flat light and bumps. For sure I felt the bumps quite aggressively today. Watching some of the other girls - especially the podium finishers - and see how they're able to ski through the bumps and still be smooth and supple and aggressive even though they couldn't see...that's a tricky thing I still have to learn."

A true and diligent student of the sport, you can bet Shiffrin will learn from Friday's race and implement her learnings in Saturday's downhill, as she fights for the podium.

"Today was actually a really good lesson and stepping stone towards that. It's probably going to be really similar conditions tomorrow and having the ability to trust that the surface is there, it's just going to be really rattly - and staying in a good position and fighting to stay forward and fighting to keep moving and fighting to be smooth is probably the biggest change that I'm going to shoot to make."

For two downhill sessions and three training runs since May, it was a solid result for Shiffrin, who increased her overall World Cup lead to 143 points over Slovenia’s Petra Vlhova, who is not competing in this weekend’s speed events at Lake Louise. Italy’s Federica Brignone, winner of last week’s World Cup giant slalom at Killington, Vt., finished 25th in Friday’s downhill and currently sits third in the overall World Cup standings, 153 points behind Shiffrin.

Up next, the women have another downhill Saturday, and a super-G Sunday. Both races will be streamed and broadcast live on the NBC Sports Network and NBC Sports Gold.

RESULTS
Women’s downhill

HOW TO WATCH
All times EST.
*Same-day delayed broadcast

Saturday, Dec. 1
1:00 p.m. - World Cup men’s super-G, Beaver Creek, Colo. - NBC Sports Gold & NBCSN
2:00 p.m. - World Cup women’s downhill, Lake Louise, CAN - NBC Sports Gold & NBCSN
5:00 p.m. - World Cup men’s super-G recap, Beaver Creek, Colo. - NBC*
6:00 p.m. - World Cup men’s super-G, Beaver Creek, Colo. - Olympic Channel*
10:00 p.m. - World Cup women’s downhill, Lake Louise, CAN - Olympic Channel*

Sunday, Dec. 2
1:00 p.m. - World Cup men’s giant slalom, run 1, Beaver Creek, Colo. - NBC Sports Gold & Olympic Channel
1:00 p.m. - World Cup women’s super-G, Lake Louise, CAN - NBC Sports Gold & Olympic Channel
2:30 p.m. - World Cup men’s giant slalom, run 2, Beaver Creek, Colo. - NBC Sports Gold & NBCSN
5:00 p.m. - World Cup men’s giant slalom recap, Beaver Creek, Colo. - NBC*
6:30 p.m. - World Cup women’s super-G recap, Lake Louise, CAN - NBCSN*
11:30 p.m. - World Cup men’s giant slalom, run 2, Beaver Creek, Colo. - Olympic Channel*