Route 66 For Shiffrin With Bansko Super-G Win

Bansko, Bulgaria, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jan, 2020 ) :American Mikaela Shiffrin notched up her 66th World Cup victory by scorching the women's super-G in Bansko on Sunday to wrap up an incredible weekend's racing.

Shiffrin, winner of Friday's first downhill at the Bulgarian resort and fourth in the second downhill Saturday, timed 1min 10.88sec.

She came in 0.29sec ahead of Marta Bassino, who was also second in the Italian podium sweep of Saturday's downhill, with Switzerland's five-time world medallist Lara Gut-Behrami, at 0.70sec, making the podium for the first time this season.

Shiffrin's victory was just her fourth in the super-G, the second of the speed events after the downhill, her last win in the discipline coming in January 2019 in Cortina.

Shiffrin, a technical specialist who has proven increasingly adept at the speed events, saw her result further consolidate her spot on top of the overall World Cup standings.

She now sits on 1,225 points, with Italian Federica Brignone -- who fell in the super-G -- second on 855pts.

Slovakia's Petra Vlhova is in third on 830pts before a big drop to Bassino (620) and the Switzerland's Wendy Holdener (493).

The win also saw Shiffrin leapfrog five places to go top of the super-G standings, on 186pts, ahead of Swiss Corinne Suter (150) and Germany's Viktoria Rebensburg (148).

The win was the 66th on the World Cup circuit for the 24-year-old, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and current three-time reigning overall World Cup champion who stands second behind now-retired compatriot Lindsey Vonn (82) for number of races won.

Shiffrin now sits just one victory behind now-retired Austrian Marcel Hirscher's 67 World Cup wins, bettered only by Vonn and Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark (86).

Shiffrin's rival in the technical events, Vlhova, threatened from start number 31, the Slovak close in the early interim timings before falling away on the bottom section to eventually finish sixth, 1.13sec off the pace.

Italy's Elena Curtoni, who claimed her maiden World Cup victory by winning Saturday's downhill from start number 28, finished seventh.