Mikaela Shiffrin can fill in if Santa Claus ever needs a break.
Shiffrin now has a herd of nine reindeer after winning the season’s first World Cup slalom race, at Levi, Finland, on Saturday. The winner of the race gets a reindeer, and this one will join Rudolph, Sven, Mr. Gru, Ingemar, Sunny, Lorax, Grogu and Rori.
Shiffrin was presented with her newest reindeer, a male, after the medals ceremony. It sniffed at her gloves before she gave it some food. Shiffrin said she doesn’t have a name picked out yet; she often waits to meet the reindeer before deciding on its name.
The reindeer will stay with Shiffrin’s other reindeer at a farm in Finland. Shiffrin visited them after last year’s World Cup.
The win was Shiffrin’s 102nd career World Cup victory, extending her own record.
‘It was really nice to race today,’ Shiffrin said after the race. ‘… I really enjoy being here and so happy to kick off the slalom season.’
Colturi had a strong second run, but it would not be enough to surpass Shiffrin. The American was near-perfect, posting the fastest time in the second run to extend her lead. Shiffrin finished with a combined time of 1:48.92, 1.66 seconds ahead of Colturi.
Germany’s Emma Aicher was third. Fellow American Paula Moltzan finished fourth, moving up from 19th after the first run.
‘This season for me, it’s been really important to start the season with a really good mentality so I can practice that every race. Because last year and the year before I was not racing so much with the injuries. So I’m super happy to have two races now that I felt really good,’ said Shiffrin, who opened the World Cup season last month with a fourth-place finish in the giant slalom in Soelden, Austria.
Shiffrin missed two months last season after a crash in the GS in Killington, Vermont, left her with a deep gash in her abdomen. She returned and got her 100th World Cup win, then finished the season by winning the slalom at the World Cup finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.