After Mikaela Shiffrin won her single season World Cup record-tying 14th race on December 22 — also her 50th career win on tour — she was asked if records mattered to her.
“It’s not really my motivation to break records, Shiffrin said. “My big motivation is to ski well.”
After a short break for the Christmas holiday Shiffrin continued her 2018-19 World Cup season by skiing “well” in Semmering, Austria, however, others skied faster.
Shiffrin led the field by a slim .02 hundredths of a second lead after her first run. Austria’s Stephanie Brunner, skiing in front of her home crowd, initially posed the most-imminent threat to Shiffrin’s record-breaking day, while the FIS point leader in GS heading into the race, Italy’s Frederica Brignone, finished her first run .