But in a sport with fields as deep as 60 racers, this season’s results highlight the closeness of the contest between the top two ranked women’s skiers who have regularly separated themselves from their colleagues. Shiffrin has won twice and been second twice. Vlhova has won twice and finished second and third.
Despite being the same age, the two racers have not always been close rivals. Shiffrin was competing on the World Cup circuit when she was 15 and won her first race on it in 2012. She now has 71 World Cup victories, a career total that has been topped only by Lindsey Vonn’s 82 wins and Stenmark’s 86. Shiffrin has won three Olympic medals, including two gold medals. Vlhova won the first of her 22 World Cup races in 2015 and has not won an Olympic medal.
But in the last two seasons, Vlhova has eight World Cup victories to Shiffrin’s five. Shiffrin also missed months of the World Cup season in 2020 after her father, Jeff, died in an accident at the family home in Colorado on Feb. 2 that year. After the pandemic delayed or canceled most of her off-season training later in 2020, a still-grieving Shiffrin returned to racing and remained among the World Cup elite, but she did not thoroughly dominate as she once did. In the 2018-19 season, for example, she won an astounding 17 times.
On Friday, when asked to describe her relationship with Vlhova, Shiffrin also cautioned that the World Cup field was filled with many accomplished, fast skiers, but she said that when Vlhova was at her best “there’s not a whole lot I can do that’s better than what she’s doing.”
She added: “And when I ski my best, there’s not a whole lot that she or anyone else could do that is really better, either. But it’s all at a very high level, and it makes it more nerve-racking.”
Shiffrin and Vlhova have been clearly amiable after their four close races this year when they’ve hugged, chatted and congratulated each other. Before Sunday’s event, they did their prerace course inspection side-by-side and stood no more than six feet apart.
Still, Shiffrin conceded that being in close quarters with her week after week, including during the tense minutes in the cramped start area before a race, can be unnerving.
