Soldeu-Grandvalira, Andorra – Relentless gusting winds and blowing snow couldn’t slow 16-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin, of Eagle, Colo., from jumping from 20th to 10th in the final run at the first Audi FIS Alpine World Cup ever held in Andorra on Saturday. American Lindsey Vonn fell victim to the tricky visibility and did not finish the first run, but retained a 458-point advantage in the overall chase as Slovenian Tina Maze finished 11th and Austria’s Marlies Schild claimed victory for the sixth time this winter.

Gusty winds pushed mostly uphill, but swirled throughout the race blowing snow across the surface creating tricky visibility. Schild charged from fifth in the first run to earn her sixth win in seven slalom races this season. She now has a 239-point lead over Maze in the World Cup slalom standings.

Shiffrin, who recently won the giant slalom National Championships in Lichtenstein while using the race as a training opportunity, earned her third World Cup top-10 result in what is her rookie season by producing Saturday’s fourth fastest second run.

“Oh my gosh, it was so windy,” exclaimed Shiffrin. “I trained a little bit yesterday after the giant slalom was canceled and it was really windy yesterday, too, so I was expecting it, but I wasn’t expecting how hard it was blowing. It hit me like a ton of bricks. The wind was mostly uphill, especially on the first run. I was heading towards the breakover on the first run and I couldn’t see where I was going. I couldn’t see the ground, I couldn’t see my hands and I was like ‘I hope I’m going around the right gate right now.’

“I learned to never give up today. Michaela Kirchgasser totally beefed her first run, still made the flip and just hammered her second run to jumped up as many spots as I did,” Shiffrin continued. “She was behind me in the first run, but finished ahead of me. I learned the most from her and Marlies Schild, they’re so solid and they know it. They’re not afraid to go balls-to-the-wall. I can imagine Schild was thinking that she had to win and that was her only option. She was probably thinking, ‘I’m going to win this thing and that’s just the way it’s going to go.'”

U.S. Ski Team women’s Head Coach Alex Hoedlmoser explained that while Vonn was competitive through the first two splits, she “got jacked a little bit, rotated and got caught on the outside edge on the next turn and couldn’t make the next gate.”

“It was a surprise not to finish, because the hill is perfect, so I am disappointed not to have had a good result,” said Vonn. “There are a lot of children out, everyone is excited to have the race here. It was fun to ski and the crowd was great.”

Canadian Marie-Michèle Gagnon, of Lac-Etchemin, Quebec, was inspired by her countryman Ben Thomsen’s performance in Sochi on Saturday, and used that inspiration to finish in eighth place in Andorra on Saturday.

“I watched Ben and I was totally pumped up,” said Gagnon. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to do something.’ His performance was pretty inspiring – it was a great result.”

Gagnon was seventh in her last World Cup race – a super combined in St. Moritz, Switzerland, but she had failed to finish her last two slaloms, in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, and Zagreb, Croatia.

“It was kind of like average. That’s where I’ve been a lot this year,” Gagnon said of sitting ninth after the first run. “But after the last two races, where I didn’t finish, it was hard in the second run to totally go for it. I didn’t want a (DNF).”

OFFICIAL RESULTS
Audi FIS Alpine World Cup
Soldeu-Grandvalira, Andorra – Feb. 11, 2012
Women’s Slalom