Mikaela Shiffrin fifth in slalom as US women's medal streak at world championships ends
Barely.
Paula Moltzan was fourth in the slalom Saturday morning, missing the bronze medal by just 0.02 seconds, while Mikaela Shiffrin finished fifth, just 0.05 seconds out of third place. It's the first race at worlds without a U.S. woman on the podium after golds in the downhill (Breezy Johnson) and team combined (Johnson and Shiffrin), and bronzes in the super-G (Lauren Macuga) and giant slalom (Moltzan).
It's also the first time in seven appearances at the world championships that Shiffrin didn't medal in the slalom, an event she's won four times. A medal Saturday also would have been her 16th, making her the most-decorated skier ever at worlds.
'It's a little bit strange to be kind of making a return midseason, and especially world championships,' Shiffrin said on Peacock. 'I think winning one gold was out of this world beyond expectations. And the end, today was something that I can learn from and, hopefully, continue to recover well for the rest of the season.'
This was still the best performance by the U.S. women at worlds in four decades, a promising sign a year out from the Milan Cortina Olympics. The four medals match the high for the Americans, and it's the first time since 1985 that three different women have won individual medals.
'It's an absolutely incredible place that we are as a team,' Shiffrin said.
Shiffrin missed almost two months with a deep gash in her obliques after being punctured — she still doesn't know by what — in a crash in the GS race at the World Cup in Killington, Vermont. She said before Saturday's race that she was still working on her consistency, trying to duplicate what she's doing in training onto a race course.
'That's been a little bit of a struggle these past couple of weeks, (to) take in an entire race slope and a full-length course and memorizing all the pieces of it and then being able to put my best skiing out there consistently through the whole run,' she said. 'That's definitely been a challenge.'
That was evident in the second slalom run.
Shiffrin had been third in the first run, 0.72 seconds behind Switzerland's Camille Rast. She made a slight error early in the second run but was quickly able to get herself back on track. She lost speed in the third section of the steep course, however, and couldn't recoup it despite making a late push.
When she crossed the finish line, she was third with two skiers still to go. Austria's Katharina Liensberger, up next, made a furious push at the end that was good enough to edge both Shiffrin and Moltzan off the podium. Liensberger finished in 1:59.32, 0.02 seconds ahead of Moltzan and 0.05 seconds ahead of Shiffrin.
It was a reversal of Moltzon's fortunes in the GS, where she won the bronze medal by 0.01 seconds.
'Some days you're on the right side of the hundredths, and some days you're on the wrong,' Moltzan said on Peacock.
Rast won the slalom title and Wendy Holdener was second, giving Switzerland a 1-2 finish.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mikaela Shiffrin finishes fifth in slalom at world championships
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