SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin won a record-equaling 15th world championship medal and Breezy Johnson became double world champion on Tuesday when the American pair took gold in the new team combined event.
Shiffrin was third-fastest in the slalom at the Alpine skiing worlds, just over three hours after Johnson had clocked the fourth-best time in the downhill.
Johnson stormed into the finish area and hugged Shiffrin after the team took the lead, with three slalom skiers still to come down.
Their lead held as the Americans beat silver medalists Lara Gut-Behrami and Wendy Holdener, who won the slalom portion by 0.39 seconds, as the Swiss skiers claimed their ninth and eighth medals, respectively, at the worlds.
Stephanie Venier and Katharina Truppe of Austria took bronze.
The gold was Shiffrin’s 15th career medal from world championships and she matches the record set in the 1930s by German skier Christl Cranz.
“I have been very emotional all day. I think it has been a weird couple of days to realize that I am not ready to ski GS and having to pull out of the GS has been heartbreaking,” said Shiffrin, after competing in her first event at the worlds and in her second race since recovering from an abdominal injury that required surgery in December.
She initially planned to race in the giant slalom, as defending champion, and the slalom but skip the team combined, then changed her mind Monday when she felt not ready yet to compete in Thursday’s GS.
With GS training off her schedule, she then decided to enter the team combined.
“When our coaches told us that we would be paired together, Breezy and I talked a little bit and she was just like, after the success she had, ‘This is for fun’,” Shiffrin said. ”It’s a different level of nerves, now I want to ski well for her. That’s so cool."
It's the second gold medal for Johnson, who won the downhill last Saturday, two months after she returned from a 14-month ban for three violations of the “whereabout” anti-doping rules.
“It’s pretty crazy. I think if you would have told us when we met that we would team up to win a world championship medal, I think neither of us would have believed it,” said Johnson, who has been friends, and skied, with Shiffrin since their youth.
Shiffrin said: “So many things had to happen in the last … how long it’s been since we were 11. In order for this to happen we needed a new event entirely. This was an amazing day for me up there, nerve-racking because Breezy did her job just spectacularly this morning. It was so much fun to watch all these days, day in day out, she has been executing … So, really, really unbelievable.”
Reacting to Shiffrin's 15th career medal in the worlds, Johnson quipped, “If we keep adding team events, maybe we can get 32 for her or something," before adding, “she is a legend, it’s super cool to be hitting my stride and she’s obviously been on hers for a decade.”
The team combined entails one racer competing in a downhill run and another in a slalom, with their two times added up to determine the final results.
The team combined will make its debut at next year’s Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Lauren Macuga had posted the fastest time in the downhill, but her American team dropped to fourth and missed a medal by 0.11 seconds after Paula Moltzen raced in the slalom.
Lindsey Vonn finished the downhill 2.51 seconds off the lead in 21st position out of 26 starters and ended up in 16th with teammate AJ Hurt.
Vonn had campaigned to race with Shiffrin on an American team that would have united the two most successful skiers in World Cup history, but the coaching staff decided to form the teams based on “season-best results” in both downhill and slalom.
After her downhill display, American star Vonn said: “I had no speed at all ... I tried to give my best, as always. Unfortunately it was not my world championships. The skis are fast, but for me something is wrong with my boots and in the turns I don’t get any speed. I stayed in my tuck but I was a turtle the whole way down.”
Vonn came out of retirement, after nearly six years, at age 40 this season with a new titanium knee. She scored two top-10 finishes on the World Cup circuit in January but did not finish the super-G and placed 15th in the downhill at the worlds.
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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
