Two months before turning 23
Authentic James Washington Jersey , Mikaela Shiffrin has already won half as many World Cup races as the winningest female ski racer of all time, American teammate Lindsey Vonn.
While the 33-year-old Vonn added her 78th career win at a super-G in France last month, Shiffrin earned her 39th victory at a giant slalom on Saturday.
”Ha, so much math,” Shiffrin told The Associated Press, and laughed. ”To be honest, I am not really counting. It’s cool to think, maybe I can get 41 this season, or maybe 45. But if I start to think about records or numbers then it just makes me nervous.”
Only Annemarie Moser-Proell (41) and Ingemar Stenmark (40) won more races before they turned 23 in the 1970s.
On Saturday, Shiffrin stretched her winning streak for 2018 to three races, becoming the first female skier with three straight wins at the start of a year since Vreni Schneider of Switzerland achieved the feat in 1989.
”I am just having a blast racing and I wanted to keep that momentum going,” she said. ”When I go on the starting gate every race, I am thinking I want to be confident. I want to show the people watching this that I am confident with my skiing and that I am being aggressive.”
Suffering from a cold, Shiffrin lost more than half a second of a big first-run lead but still beat world GS champion Tessa Worley of France by 0.31 seconds.
Sofia Goggia of Italy was 0.91 behind in third, followed by three more racers all within one second of Shiffrin’s winning time. Goggia’s Italian teammate Federica Brignone was 0.98 behind in sixth after winning the previous GS, in Lienz eight days ago.
”It is super fun to ski, I am super psyched about it,” said Shiffrin, who now leads the overall as well as all discipline standings except for super-G.
The U.S. ski team said Shiffrin had been ”battling a cold this week” but traveled across the Italian border on Friday to train in Tarvisio.
”A lot of the girls have been sick so I didn’t feel like it was an excuse for today. I wanted to come down and charge,” said Shiffrin, who has won six of the last seven World Cup events.
Wearing bib 7, Shiffrin avoided mistakes in an aggressive opening run to build a 0.86-second lead over Worley. She was a bit more conservative in her final run but her lead was never under threat.
”It’s not a very long course so even being a little bit sick I have enough energy for that,” she said after the opening leg. ”I am really happy with my skiing. I was loose and really aggressive. That’s really exciting for me. I just tried to go out aggressive and it worked that run.”
Worley won the World Cup GS title last year but is still awaiting her first win of the season. Even a strong second run wasn’t sufficient on Saturday.
”I pushed hard
Sam Martin Jersey , and I knew I had to because Mikaela did such a great first run,” Worley said. ”I wanted to be in the game for the win. It wasn’t enough but I am happy with the race today.”
Goggia, who was last season’s revelation with 13 podiums including two wins on the Olympic course in Jeongseon, is also still winless.
”The first part of my season was pretty tough but today I am happy to have found my inner Goggia spirit again,” said the Italian after her third top-three result of the season.
A slalom on the same course is set for Sunday. This weekend’s races have been moved from Maribor because of a lack of snow and warm weather in the North-Eastern Slovenian resort.
DENVER — When he starts Wednesday against the New York Mets, Chad Bettis will try to build off his last game for the Colorado Rockies, one that included a deceptively bad pitching line that masked an abrupt turnaround.
On Friday at Texas, Bettis (5-1, 4.65) gave up five runs in the first inning, including two two-run homers on badly located breaking pitches. But Bettis went on to pitch 4 2/3 scoreless innings, a span in which he allowed two singles and retired 12 of the final 13 batters he faced with six strikeouts.
The Rockies erupted for six runs in the second and went on to win 9-5 and give Bettis his first victory after six straight no-decisions. He had not won since May 5 at Citi Field when he worked seven scoreless innings against the Mets.
“It didn’t surprise me what he did (against the Rangers) because he’s tenacious,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “He doesn’t back down. He doesn’t quit. And I think he knew there was a long way to go. I think it naturally energized him when we got six runs in the top of the next inning.”
Before that uprising, Black said Bettis could have caved in and accepted that it wasn’t his night.
“The good ones don’t let that happen,” Black said. “He knew that there were four or five more innings for him to stay out there, especially in that American League game. That showed me a lot that he put up zeros for 4 2/3 (innings).”
Bettis, who is 1-0, 4.05 in three starts against the Mets, will be trying to finally win at Coors Field this year where he is 0-0, 7.76 in six starts. He will take the mound after the Rockies beat the Mets 10-8 Tuesday night to even the four-game series and break an eight-game losing streak at Coors Field. The win was just the fifth in 18 games for the Rockies, who are 12-20 at Coors Field, where they have typically dominated.
“Overall we haven’t pitched well here for whatever reason,” Black said. “We got to do that. We got to make pitches. It doesn’t matter where we play, we got to pitch well. And what’s happening here at home is the other team is making better pitches than us over the course of 150
Darius Slay Jersey , 180 pitches.”
Bettis will be opposed by Seth Lugo (2-2, 2.49), who will be making his Coors Field debut and is 1-1, 3.00 in three starts this season with one walk and 18 strikeouts in 15 innings. Lugo is 1-0, 3.55 in three games, including one start, against the Rockies.
The Mets’ three-game winning streak ended Tuesday as they lost for the 13th time in 17 games and fell to 14-30 since May 1.
The Mets put outfielder Jay Bruce on the 10-day disabled list retroactive to Monday with right hip soreness after he missed a fourth start in five days and sent him back to New York for an MRI. Dominic Smith, a first baseman by trade, played left field Tuesday, and Mets manager Mickey Callaway said Smith, who began playing the outfield last month for Triple-A Las Vegas and entered Friday’s game in Arizona as the left fielder, would receive work at that position as the Mets go with four outfielders.
To replace Bruce, they recalled Tim Peterson, wanting an extra reliever with three games left in the series at hitter-friendly Coors Field. Peterson threw 19 pitches in two perfect innings Tuesday. The Mets will re-evaluate their roster before beginning a Friday series at home with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Mets outfield corps now includes Smith and Jose Bautista along with regulars Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto. Callaway said Wilmer Flores, who has had outfield experience, would stay at first base, leaving Smith and Bautista as the primary options in left field.
“We won’t hesitate to put Dom out there like we did today,” Callaway said, “but Bautista, who has been having great at-bats and playing pretty well in the outfield for us will get some playing time as well.”
