Latest news with #Moltzan
USA Today
15-02-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Mikaela Shiffrin fifth in slalom as US women's medal streak at world championships ends
The U.S. women's medal streak at the world championships is over. 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.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Mikaela Shiffrin fifth in slalom as US women's medal streak at world championships ends
The U.S. women's medal streak at the world championships is over. 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
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
From the same Minnesota hill that produced Lindsey Vonn, Paula Moltzan wins bronze at ski worlds
SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (AP) — Finishing fourth when medals are on the line can feel like cruel punishment. Paula Moltzan knows the feeling all too well. Already at this year's Alpine skiing world championships, she was on the U.S. squad that finished fourth in the mixed team parallel event. Then she couldn't hold on to the lead that partner Lauren Macuga had set up in the downhill portion of the new team combined event and ended up fourth with her slalom run. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Also on the U.S. team that finished fourth in the team parallel at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Moltzan's only major medal had been a victory with the U.S. team in the same event at the last worlds two years ago. Until Thursday, when Moltzan took the bronze medal in giant slalom for her first individual medal at this level, finishing a mere hundredth of a second ahead of Thea Louise Stjernesund of Norway — in a race won by Federica Brignone of Italy. 'It's feeling pretty special right now,' Moltzan said. 'Ski racing big time comes down to the hundredths of a second. And so to be on the right side on a big stage feels pretty amazing. And to share it with my family and my husband and my whole team is unmatched.' Moltzan was third in the opening run held in bright sunshine and then maintained her position in fading light during the second run. Knowing immediately that she had earned a medal, the Minnesota native pumped her arms up and down, threw her hands on top of her helmet in apparent disbelief and waved to her cheering squad in the stands decked out in USA hockey jerseys with Moltzan's name on the back. 'That's my mom and my dad and my mother-in-law, my father-in-law. And then our two really good friends from Vermont and then my agent,' Moltzan said. Of course, there was one other special person enjoying the medal, too: Husband Ryan Mooney, who is Moltzan's ski technician and unofficial coach, eventually skied down from the start and took part in the post-race podium celebration. Long regarded as the U.S. women's team's second-best technical skier behind Mikaela Shiffrin, Moltzan's medal came in a race that Shiffrin sat out as defending champion while still recovering her giant slalom form and mental state following a crash in November. Moltzan also finished third in the final World Cup giant slalom before the worlds. She had a string of solid results entering the last worlds, too, only to break her hand again while helping the Americans win the team event — which led to a DNF (did not finish) in giant slalom and forced her to sit out the slalom, which has traditionally been her best event. Moltzan won gold in slalom at the junior worlds a decade ago but then lost her spot on the U.S. team a year later because of poor results. So she enrolled at the University of Vermont and won the NCAA slalom title a year later. While still at UVM in 2018, she finished 17th in the World Cup slalom down the road at Killington, giving her enough World Cup points to head back over to Europe and resume World Cup racing. Only she still wasn't part of the U.S. team, meaning that she and then-boyfriend Mooney had to raise $50,000 on their own to travel and compete across the Alps. 'I definitely have an unconventional story,' Moltzan said. 'But I'm proud of every step of it and it feels good to add this to the list of accomplishments I have.' Both of Moltzan's parents were ski instructors at Buck Hill in Minnesota and Moltzan moved into the elite program led there by Lindsey Vonn's former coach, Erich Sailer, when she was 12. Now she's established herself as a contender for a medal at next year's Milan-Cortina Olympics, with Vonn also planning to compete at the age of 41. Moltzan became the fourth American woman to earn a medal at this year's worlds, after Macuga's bronze in the super-G, Breezy Johnson's downhill victory and gold for Johnson and Shiffrin in team combined. 'The women's U.S. Ski Team right now is extremely strong in both tech and speed, and it feels like everything is just kind of working off each other,' Moltzan said. 'You watch the speed girls compete and their passion and their speed and you just feel like, 'OK, well, I don't want to be the athlete or the team that doesn't medal today.' And obviously we're missing Mikaela Shiffrin here. But I think even without her, we are a very strong team in GS.' Shiffrin will be back for Saturday's slalom — as will Moltzan — with both chasing their second medal of the championships. ___ AP skiing:
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Federica Brignone wins ski worlds giant slalom; American Paula Moltzan snags bronze by .01
Italian Federica Brignone will go into a home Olympics as a reigning world champion, while Minnesotan Paula Moltzan is a first-time individual world medalist, 12-plus years after her debut at ski racing's highest level. Brignone, 34, broke her own records as the oldest woman to win an individual Alpine skiing world medal and gold medal, taking the giant slalom on Thursday in Saalbach, Austria. She prevailed by nine tenths of a second over Alice Robinson, who became the first Alpine skier from New Zealand to make a world podium. Moltzan snagged bronze by one hundredth over Thea Louise Stjernesund of Norway combining times from two runs. Moltzan, a 30-year-old who has spent summers as a whitewater rafting guide, extended the U.S. run to a medal in each of the first four women's events at these worlds. ALPINE SKIING WORLDS: Results | Broadcast Schedule Brignone spent the first six years of her life in Milan, scurrying on plastic skis around her family's carpeted apartment. While Milan co-hosts next February's Olympics, the women's Alpine events will be at Cortina d'Ampezzo. Brignone previously won two Olympic medals and two world medals in the GS starting in 2011, all silver or bronze. She earned her first global title in 2023 in the individual combined, which is no longer on the Olympic or world program. This season, Brignone has already became the oldest woman to win a World Cup race in downhill, super-G and giant slalom. She leads the standings for the World Cup overall title, the biggest annual prize in ski racing which she previously won in 2019-20. "This was my dream to be a gold medal in GS," she said. "Yeah, I've been dreaming of this moment for many, many years. I was always second. This is just, yeah, one of the best days of my life, I think." Moltzan debuted on the World Cup at age 18 in 2012, then was cut from the U.S. team in 2016. She then spent three NCAA All-America seasons at Vermont before breaking into the top 10 of a World Cup race for the first time at age 26, recharged during COVID-19 in a shed gym in the middle of the woods. She has made four World Cup podiums across three disciplines (parallel, slalom and GS), emerging as the U.S.' second-best technical skier after Mikaela Shiffrin. Moltzan was asked moments after Thursday's race how she translated an all-out attitude into her skiing. "A lot of hard work, some practice and a lot of disappointment," she said on Peacock. Earlier at these worlds, Moltzan was part of fourth-place teams in the mixed-gender parallel event (which the U.S. won in 2023 with Moltzan) and in the combined. In the combined, she was the last skier to go in the final slalom run after teammate Lauren Macuga had the fastest downhill run by 23 hundredths. Moltzan posted the 15th-fastest slalom run. Macuga and Moltzan's combined time was 11 hundredths shy of a medal. "It was extremely motivating," Moltzan said of the combined. "I'll quote (American teammate) River Radamus, 'There's nothing worse than getting fourth on the big stage.'" Now, after years of anticipating which American women could follow Shiffrin onto major championship podiums, three have done so in the last eight days: Macuga (super-G bronze), Breezy Johnson (downhill gold, team combined gold with Shiffrin) and now Moltzan. It's the first time in 40 years that three different U.S. women have won an individual medal at worlds. Shiffrin races her lone individual event at these worlds in Saturday's slalom, where she can make it four for the first time ever. Shiffrin, who won the GS at the last worlds in 2023, didn't race it Thursday. She is going through "some mental obstacles" specific to the GS discipline after tearing oblique muscles in a Nov. 30 GS crash. Worlds continue Friday with the men's giant slalom, live at 3:45 and 7:15 a.m. ET on Peacock. Paula Moltzan, after three years at school, seizes second ski racing chance Paula Moltzan, after a three-year break to go to college, is bidding for her first Winter Olympics in Alpine skiing. Nick Zaccardi, Nick Zaccardi, Gold: Federica Brignone (ITA) -- 2:22.71 Silver: Alice Robinson (NZL) -- +.90 Bronze: Paula Moltzan (USA) -- +2.62 4. Thea Louise Stjernesund (NOR) -- +2.63 5. Lara Gut-Behrami (SUI) -- +2.88 6. Sara Hector (SWE) -- +2.88 7. Lara Colturi (ALB) -- +3.50 8. Zrinka Ljutic (CRO) -- +3.54 9. Lena Duerr (GER) -- +3.56 10. Britt Richardson (CAN) -- +3.89 13. AJ Hurt (USA) -- +4.60 19. Nina O'Brien (USA) -- +4.91 22. Katie Hensien (USA) -- +5.76
Associated Press
13-02-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
From the same Minnesota hill that produced Lindsey Vonn, Paula Moltzan wins bronze at ski worlds
SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (AP) — Finishing fourth when medals are on the line can feel like cruel punishment. Paula Moltzan knows the feeling all too well. Already at this year's Alpine skiing world championships, she was on the U.S. squad that finished fourth in the mixed team parallel event. Then she couldn't hold on to the lead that partner Lauren Macuga had set up in the downhill portion of the new team combined event and ended up fourth with her slalom run. Also on the U.S. team that finished fourth in the team parallel at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Moltzan's only major medal had been a victory with the U.S. team in the same event at the last worlds two years ago. Until Thursday, when Moltzan took the bronze medal in giant slalom for her first individual medal at this level, finishing a mere hundredth of a second ahead of Thea Louise Stjernesund of Norway — in a race won by Federica Brignone of Italy. 'It's feeling pretty special right now,' Moltzan said. 'Ski racing big time comes down to the hundredths of a second. And so to be on the right side on a big stage feels pretty amazing. And to share it with my family and my husband and my whole team is unmatched.' Moltzan was third in the opening run held in bright sunshine and then maintained her position in fading light during the second run. Knowing immediately that she had earned a medal, the Minnesota native pumped her arms up and down, threw her hands on top of her helmet in apparent disbelief and waved to her cheering squad in the stands decked out in USA hockey jerseys with Moltzan's name on the back. 'That's my mom and my dad and my mother-in-law, my father-in-law. And then our two really good friends from Vermont and then my agent,' Moltzan said. Of course, there was one other special person enjoying the medal, too: Husband Ryan Mooney, who is Moltzan's ski technician and unofficial coach, eventually skied down from the start and took part in the post-race podium celebration. Long regarded as the U.S. women's team's second-best technical skier behind Mikaela Shiffrin, Moltzan's medal came in a race that Shiffrin sat out as defending champion while still recovering her giant slalom form and mental state following a crash in November. Moltzan also finished third in the final World Cup giant slalom before the worlds. She had a string of solid results entering the last worlds, too, only to break her hand again while helping the Americans win the team event — which led to a DNF (did not finish) in giant slalom and forced her to sit out the slalom, which has traditionally been her best event. Moltzan won gold in slalom at the junior worlds a decade ago but then lost her spot on the U.S. team a year later because of poor results. So she enrolled at the University of Vermont and won the NCAA slalom title a year later. While still at UVM in 2018, she finished 17th in the World Cup slalom down the road at Killington, giving her enough World Cup points to head back over to Europe and resume World Cup racing. Only she still wasn't part of the U.S. team, meaning that she and then-boyfriend Mooney had to raise $50,000 on their own to travel and compete across the Alps. 'I definitely have an unconventional story,' Moltzan said. 'But I'm proud of every step of it and it feels good to add this to the list of accomplishments I have.' Both of Moltzan's parents were ski instructors at Buck Hill in Minnesota and Moltzan moved into the elite program led there by Lindsey Vonn's former coach, Erich Sailer, when she was 12. Now she's established herself as a contender for a medal at next year's Milan-Cortina Olympics, with Vonn also planning to compete at the age of 41. Moltzan became the fourth American woman to earn a medal at this year's worlds, after Macuga's bronze in the super-G, Breezy Johnson's downhill victory and gold for Johnson and Shiffrin in team combined. 'The women's U.S. Ski Team right now is extremely strong in both tech and speed, and it feels like everything is just kind of working off each other,' Moltzan said. 'You watch the speed girls compete and their passion and their speed and you just feel like, 'OK, well, I don't want to be the athlete or the team that doesn't medal today.' And obviously we're missing Mikaela Shiffrin here. But I think even without her, we are a very strong team in GS.' Shiffrin will be back for Saturday's slalom — as will Moltzan — with both chasing their second medal of the championships. ___
