SUN VALLEY, Idaho — Mikaela Shiffrin is no longer the only U.S. woman making herself at home on the podium.
The U.S. women last week wrapped up their most successful season in more than a decade. Five different women made World Cup podiums, while four women got medals at the world championships.
“It’s a pretty special time to be part of the women’s U.S. ski team, tech or speed. We just continue to build off each other,” Paula Moltzan, who was the bronze medalist in two World Cup races and also finished third in the giant slalom at the world championships, said after wrapping up the World Cup finals.
“Hopefully we’re able to carry that momentum into the first couple races of the season and then yeah, carry it into the Olympics.”
For the last four decades, the Americans have always had a dominant female skier. Sometimes the dominant female skier. Tamara McKinney. Picabo Street. Lindsey Vonn. Shiffrin. But it was often a two-woman show at the end of Vonn’s career — the first iteration — and, during her five-year hiatus, up to Shiffrin to carry the load.
No more.
When Lauren Macuga won the super-G in St. Anton, Austria, it was the first time a U.S. woman not named Shiffrin or Vonn had been atop a World Cup podium since 2013, when Alice McKennis won the downhill, also in St. Anton. Breezy’s Johnson’s gold in the downhill at the world championships was the first win in an individual event at worlds by someone other than Shiffrin or Vonn since Hilary Lindh, also in the downhill, in 1997.
And Vonn’s silver medal in the super-G at the World Cup finals made her the fifth different U.S. woman to make a World Cup podium this season, the most since there were seven in 2012-13.
In addition to Moltzan and Vonn's World Cup success, Shiffrin had four wins and a third-place finish in slalom, despite missing two months after a crash at Killington, Vermont, left her with a deep gash in her obliques. Macuga, who is 22, had a downhill silver in addition to her super-G win. ...
