Shiffrin marches on with 81st World Cup win

The Christmas break couldn't halt Mikaela Shiffrin's march towards history, and it turns out that the New Year's break was powerless to stop it too.

The American superstar picked up right where she left off on Wednesday, dominating the Zagreb slalom for her fifth consecutive victory and 81st World Cup win, one short of the women's record held by her former teammate Lindsey Vonn.

Shiffrin mastered the spring-like conditions to win her women's record fifth World Cup race in the Croatian capital and first since 2019, finishing ahead of Slovakia's Petra Vlhova (+0.76s) and Sweden's Anna Swenn Larsson (+1.21s).

"I had so much fun skiing today and it was really my best skiing — both runs," Shiffrin said.

"Nothing less than the best is going to work and I was taking all the risks I needed and then nailed it on the finish."

Shiffrin's winning streak includes victories in a super-G in St. Moritz before Christmas, two giant slaloms and a slalom in Semmering between Christmas and New Year, and now the first of the two Zagreb slaloms in unseasonably warm weather.

The conditions resulted in the lowering of the start gate and soft snow underfoot, which caught out many of the top athletes in the first run on the steep pitch at the end of the course.

Shiffrin, skiing last among the top seeds in the first run with bib No. 7, avoided the bigger mistakes that her rivals had made and took a lead of 0.23 seconds over Swenn Larsson.

The American then raised her game to a new level in the second leg, skiing a virtually flawless run to increase her advantage at every split time and cruise to victory.

"I'm really happy with how my skis felt in these conditions," Shiffrin said. "I think that was the most exciting thing of the day, that I felt so good skiing when it's a bit softer."

Olympic slalom champion Vlhova, winner of the last three Zagreb slaloms, was third after the first run and moved up a spot with a superb second run, but she is still searching for her first victory of the season.

"Of course I want to always win," Vlhova said. "But this year, Mikaela's really strong and if you want to beat her, you need to ski perfect in both runs.

"And especially in the first run I was not so perfect, I did a few mistakes."

As the penultimate racer in the second run, Swenn Larsson was comfortably ahead of Vlhova's leading times all the way but a mistake on the bottom third of the course cost her the chance to take the lead.

"In the end I tried to focus on what to do (given the conditions) and just fight all the way," Svenn Larsson said.

"It was actually the same when I took my first victory in Killington (in November) — I didn't feel well, I had mistakes, but still, fight to the finish and I did it as well today and now I'm on the podium so it's really nice."

Switzerland's Wendy Holdener moved up from sixth after the first run with an aggressive second run to finish fourth, missing the podium by 0.17 seconds.

Another slalom will be held in Zagreb on Thursday, meaning Shiffrin will only have to wait 24 hours before her first attempt to equal Vonn's record.

On current form, few would bet against her.