Mikaela Shiffrin tightened her grip on the overall title race in the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup on Sunday after making an uncommon appearance in the super-G, while her closest challenger Emma Aicher failed to finish the race.
Shiffrin ended the event in 23rd place, with the victory going to 35-year-old Italian skier Elena Curtoni. Curtoni’s triumph would have set several age-related World Cup records in women’s skiing if not for the recent return of 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn.
The Italian team enjoyed a strong showing on home snow, highlighted by 29-year-old Asja Zenere claiming an unexpected third place despite starting with the low-ranked bib No. 33.
Competing in only her second super-G race in more than two years, Shiffrin started with bib No. 31. She began her run roughly 30 minutes after Aicher skied out midway through what had looked like a promising run that might have moved her into the lead.
Although Shiffrin earned just eight points from finishing 23rd, the result increased her overall advantage over Aicher to 125 points with six races remaining in the season, including two slalom events her strongest discipline and the one in which she is also the Olympic champion. Aicher competes across all events, something uncommon in modern Alpine skiing, though she rarely records top-10 finishes in giant slalom.
Curtoni’s victory completed an unexpected sweep of the weekend’s three races for Italy in the sun-lit Dolomites. Teammate Laura Pirovano had won both downhill races by just 0.01 seconds but appeared slightly fatigued in the super-G, finishing eighth, 0.46 seconds behind the winner.
Curtoni said watching Pirovano lead the previous two days gave her extra motivation. The win ended a wait dating back to 2022 for what became the fourth World Cup victory of her career. At 35, she is now the oldest skier to win a women’s World Cup super-G, with only Vonn having been older when winning any race on the circuitz her last coming in a downhill event in January.
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