Mikaela Shiffrin passed the 1 Authentic Mason Cole Jersey ,000-point milestone for the women’s World Cup season on Wednesday after just 14 starts.
The Olympic champion from the United States took a slalom by a huge margin for her seventh win of the season, and 38th overall.
After skipping two speed races in Val d’Isere last month, Shiffrin leads the overall standings with 1,081 points after 16 of this season’s 38 races. Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany, who didn’t enter Wednesday’s slalom, trails by 571 points in second.
If Shiffrin maintains her point average, she would finish the season by setting an all-time record of 2,567 points, easily beating the current best mark of 2,414 set by retired Slovenian standout Tina Maze five years ago.
”I don’t know if I will ever be able to do that. It’s not really one of my goals,” the American said. ”I also have so much respect for the season that Tina Maze had with so many points, it was incredible. There is a part of me that hopes that nobody ever beats that because she should really be remembered as one of the best ski racers of all time.”
Shiffrin, who is the defending overall and four-time slalom World Cup champion, has won five of the last six World Cup races, including last week’s slalom in Lienz where she led the field by more than a second after the opening run, a feat she repeated on Wednesday.
In the second run, Shiffrin defied strong winds and heavy snowfall to beat Wendy Holdener of Switzerland by 1.59 seconds. Frida Hansdotter of Sweden was 2.11 behind in third, while Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova, the only skier to beat Shiffrin in a slalom event this season, finished 2.24 off the lead in fourth.
”The second run was much closer,” said Shiffrin, who started the final leg with a 1.41-second advantage. ”The first run I was really, really aggressive. It seems like Authentic Chase Edmonds Jersey , maybe, I was more aggressive than everyone else.”
After winning the Snow Queen Trophy, Shiffrin was handed a glass crown by Croatian great Janica Kostelic, though the jewelry dropped off her head and broke in pieces during the prize giving ceremony as the American struggled to open a champagne bottle.
In last year’s race on the Sljeme hill, Shiffrin was eying a record-equaling eighth straight slalom win but straddled a gate early in her first run.
”I love racing here so I wanted to come back and have a little bit of redemption and ski aggressive,” said Shiffrin, who also won the event in 2013 and 2015.
”If I am feeling really good with my skiing, I am confident and prepared, then I can go on the starting gate and really, really trust myself in my skiing,” she added. ”Then I can have these kind of runs that are really fun for me to do but it’s really, really aggressive.”
The result stretched Holdener’s streak to 13 slalom podiums without a win, a World Cup record.
The Swiss skier has finished runner-up in the discipline seven times in total, and five times Shiffrin was the winner.
To Holdener, however, missing out on her maiden slalom triumph doesn’t frustrate her too much.
”I try, and if it works, it works. If not, then nothing has happened. I still love to ski, I am happy to be here and fight with those girls,” said Holdener, who did win a city event and a combined race in 2016.
A men’s slalom on the same course is scheduled for Thursday, while the women’s World Cup continues in Slovenia this weekend. Those races have been moved to Kranjska Gora because of a lack of snow and mild temperatures in Maribor.
Since their last encounter with the Philadelphia Phillies Authentic Calvin Ridley Jersey , the Washington Nationals did not do much offensively.
In fact, they did not score.
After going scoreless for two games with the Tampa Bay Rays, the Nationals hope to get their offense going Thursday night in the opener of a four-game series against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.
The Nationals rallied late to beat the Phillies on Sunday night but then mustered five hits and struck out 23 times in Tampa Bay. After the low output, Washington heads into Philadelphia with nine losses in 12 games and hopes to be refreshed following a day off on Wednesday.
“We’re in a little bit of a funk right now,” Washington manager Dave Martinez told reporters following Tuesday’s 1-0 loss. “This day off couldn’t come soon enough. We’ve had a rough go with our schedule here the last few days, so a little break will do the boys right.”
It is not about to get easier for the Nationals, though.
They will face Phillies ace Aaron Nola for the second time in four games on Thursday night. Right-hander Tanner Roark will be on the mound for Washington, making his second consecutive start against Philadelphia.
Nola (9-2, 2.58 ERA), well on his way to his first All-Star appearance, pitched six strong innings against the Nationals last Saturday. The righty gave up two runs on four hits and three walks and struck out five in a 5-3 Phillies win.
Nola, 26, has pitched at least six innings in 13 of his 16 starts this season and has allowed two earned runs or less in 12 of those games. His 1.016 WHIP ranked fifth in the National League as of Wednesday.
Nola has faced the Nationals 11 times in his career — the most of any opponent for the fourth-year major leaguer. He is 2-4 with a 4.35 ERA and 70 strikeouts in 60 innings in those starts.
Roark (3-8, 4.27) also has plenty of experience against the Phillies. He is 6-8 with a 4.34 ERA in 19 career games against the Nationals’ divisional rival. But Roark’s last outing against Philadelphia did not go well.
The 31-year-old had seven strikeouts, but he gave up six runs on seven hits and four walks last Friday in a 12-2 defeat. Before the loss to the Phillies, Roark gave up four runs on eight hits in four innings against the Toronto Blue Jays on June 17.
“The last two starts, I’ve left the bullpen out to dry, and I’m not happy about it,” Roark told MLB.com after his last start. “Just overall a bad start again. But I’ve got to stay optimistic. I found something in there. So, you’ve got to take a positive out of a negative all the time.”
The Phillies snapped a three-game losing streak with a 3-0 win over the New York Yankees on Wednesday night.
At 42-36, Philadelphia enters the series a game ahead of Washington for second place in the National League East. The Phillies are 2.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves for the top spot in the division.
The Phillies took two of three against the Nationals last weekend. The teams have split six head-to-head meetings in 2018 — all of which were at Nationals Park.