Back from injury, Shiffrin eyes World Cup record in Finland

By ERIC WILLEMSEN
Associated Press

Approaching a race weekend where she can set yet another Alpine skiing World Cup record might sound like business as usual to Mikaela Shiffrin. But it’s not. The American double Olympic champion has arrived in Finland for two slaloms after dealing with back pain that limited her preparation in Copper Mountain. Shiffrin was able to ski the volume she had planned only the last days before heading to Finnish Lapland. She says “we are through the worst of this whole spasm.” Shiffrin has won 45 of her 70 career World Cups in slalom and can match the best mark for most wins in a single discipline. Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark won 46 giant slalom in the 1970s and ’80s.