Mikaela Shiffrin claims incredible 92nd World Cup win at Lienz to extend her lead in overall standings

Mikaela Shiffrin held on for giant slalom victory at Lienz in the penultimate chapter of a historic 2023 for the greatest skier of all time.

The American won the 12th World Cup race of an incredible calendar year that saw her break the all-time record for circuit wins.

Shiffrin’s road to an equal record sixth overall Crystal Globe continued with a triumph in the Tyrol.

Her combined time of two minutes, 5.98 seconds was too good for the rest despite a relatively poor second run that was the 17th-fastest in the field.

The charge came from Federica Brignone of Italy, who posted the fastest time at the second attempt to snag silver.

Bronze went to Olympic champion Sara Hector of Sweden, second-quickest in the first run to finish 0.18s ahead of fourth-placed Valerie Grenier.

“The second run was great skiing with a little bit more space,” said Shiffrin, who lost 1.25 seconds on Brignone in the final run.

“Federica, a few more gates and she would have probably taken it. So, that’s the next thing to learn for the coming races: you have to push in the second run.

“I was like, now I want to win it but I also really don’t want to mess it up, that would be so disappointing. So, it was a little back and forth in my thoughts,” Shiffrin said about trying to maintain her first-run lead.

“Every (GS) race, I feel more comfortable and I think I have a really good focus with my skiing that can be simple. I can hopefully repeat it more and more races, so I’m super happy with the progress.”

It was Shiffrin’s 22nd career win in the giant slalom, but first this season.

The American is third in the discipline standings, 80 points behind leader Brignone and 45 behind Lara Gut-Behrami. The Swiss skier finished sixth on Thursday.