{"id":173727,"date":"2025-11-30T11:17:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T11:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/mikaela-shiffrin-happy-to-race-world-cup-at-home-after-14th-place-gs-finish-at-copper-mountain-vaildaily-com\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T11:17:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T11:17:29","slug":"mikaela-shiffrin-happy-to-race-world-cup-at-home-after-14th-place-gs-finish-at-copper-mountain-vaildaily-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/mikaela-shiffrin-happy-to-race-world-cup-at-home-after-14th-place-gs-finish-at-copper-mountain-vaildaily-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikaela Shiffrin happy to race World Cup at home after 14th-place GS finish at Copper Mountain – VailDaily.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

News<\/a> | rsederquist@vaildaily.com<\/a>
With significant ties to both places, Mikaela Shiffrin can’t say whether or not a ‘home’ World Cup feels better in Killington, Vermont compared to Colorado.
“My home is like 30 minutes away from here, which is amazing,” said Shiffrin, who lives in Edwards and started skiing in Vail before enrolling at Burke Mountain Academy at 13<\/a><\/use><\/svg>. “I think the best thing is making it to the finish of this GS at this time of the year. I would rank that above everything else.”
Roughly a year ago, Shiffrin was well on her way to World Cup win No. 100<\/a>, leading after the first run of the giant slalom in Killington \u2014 a venue where she’s won six times. Part way through the third sector, however, she slipped onto her inside hip during a right turn and crashed through the next gate, losing a ski before sliding to rest in the netting along the outer edge of the Superstar course.\u00a0
The 30-year-old suffered a seven-centimeter deep abdominal puncture wound, which required surgery<\/a> and sidelined the skier for the\u00a0much-anticipated women’s World Cup<\/a>\u00a0races in\u00a0Beaver Creek<\/a>\u00a0last December. After a\u00a060-day<\/a>\u00a0absence<\/a>, Shiffrin returned to the circuit and eventually competed at the World Championships in Saalbach, Austria, in February. But she declined her giant slalom start, citing post-traumatic stress disorder.\u00a0<\/a>
Before this Olympic season started, Shiffrin said<\/a> “it’s still very much a work in progress to be able to take on the full speed of a GS course.” At the season-opener in S\u00f6lden, Shiffrin just missed the podium in fourth<\/a>. On Saturday at Copper Mountain \u2014 the domestic World Cup which replaced the Killington stop this year \u2014 she finished 14th<\/a>.
“I’m really quite excited with where my general level of GS is,” Shiffrin said. “It’s been pretty fast every training day.”
Alice Robinson’s aggressive line set the first-run standard on Saturday and both the New Zealand star and Norwegian Thea Louise Stjernesund held fast to the fall line to a tie for the fastest second effort. Meanwhile, Shiffrin sat in 18th place after her first trip down the West Encore slope. The Edwards skier said in watching the top women, she saw “some pretty obvious things they were bringing into their turn” that she hoped to implement in the afternoon.
“I had to kind of do a pretty big readjustment of like, my technical cues a little bit,” Shiffrin continued. “This surface is so specific and it’s kind of hard to explain, but the gist is, it’s just really difficult to be really fast consistently for the whole run.”
On run No. 2, Shiffrin had the fourth-fastest first split, the 27th-best second and then the fastest third interval. Even though she dropped off the pace on Rosi’s Face, she was able to move up to 14th.
“I was able to execute, like 90% of the run, I feel like really well,” she said. “I’m psyched because it’s hard to change your mentality from the first to second run of a race and to actually really put that into play and execute it. And I feel like I was able to do that for the most part and that’s a great direction for the coming races.”
The Copper Cup closes with a women’s slalom on Sunday. Shiffrin has been victorious in the first two slaloms of the season, winning in Levi on Nov. 15<\/a> and Gurgl last weekend<\/a>. But recent long travel days, combined with the first double-race weekend of the year \u2014 and at 9,000 feet to boot \u2014\u00a0are going to make things tough on Sunday, she said.
“It’s a tough setup to do two runs of GS into a slalom and it’s going to be a really long slalom,” Shiffrin said. “So, all the women today who did this race, I think we’re all going to be really feeling our legs tomorrow. I’m already feeling my legs.”
Despite the fatigue, Shiffrin smiled when asked about racing in front of a huge partisan crowd \u2014 this time in Colorado.
“I’m psyched,” she said. “It’s really exciting to see so many people and there’s so much enthusiasm. It’s just amazing to be home and to have this kind of turnout for World Cup.”
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