Expected to be a gold medal contender in the women’s slalom, U.S. Alpine skiing phenom Mikaela Shiffrin didn’t disappoint on her opening run.
Shiffrin carved through the course in a time of 52.62 seconds. As of this writing, she’s almost half a second faster than Germany’s Maria Hoefl-Riesch, the defending Olympic champion and a Sochi winner in the super combined.
Slovenia’s Tina Maze, seeking her third Sochi gold after triumphs in the downhill and giant slalom, is just an additional .18 of a second behind Hoefl-Riesch in third position.
Austria’s Bernadette Schild is fourth and countryman Marlies Schild - the 2010 silver medalist in this event - is in sixth.
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NBCOlympics.com’s Alan Abrahamson is attending the event at Rosa Khutor. Here are some of his thoughts after Shiffrin’s first run:
Wow. Super-fluid, -confident run by Mikaela Shiffrin. She bounces into the lead w run of 52.62, up right now by 49-hundredths.
— Alan Abrahamson (@alanabrahamson) February 21, 2014
To underscore how impressive Shiffrin’s run was: Marlies Schild is 1.34 back. Lots can happen in slalom. But still …
— Alan Abrahamson (@alanabrahamson) February 21, 2014
To reiterate: lots can happen. But that first-run Mikaela run is following the Ligety script for victory.
— Alan Abrahamson (@alanabrahamson) February 21, 2014
The second and final run goes off at 11:15 a.m. ET. CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT LIVE.
