Shiffrin rules out racing downhill; super-G next at worlds

MERIBEL, France (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin has ruled out skiing the downhill at the world championships — keeping to her pre-announced schedule of four events.

Shiffrin inspected the course before the opening downhill training session Tuesday just to take a look at the layout ahead of Wednesday’s super-G race. But she did not enter the training session.

Then she performed a few runs of super-G training.

Shiffrin straddled a gate in the slalom leg and was disqualified from the combined race Monday that opened the championships.

After the super-G, she also plans to ski her preferred events of giant slalom and slalom at the end of next week. Shiffrin had left open a small possibility that she would race the downhill but now she has decided not to.

World Cup downhill leader Sofia Goggia led the training session, placing 0.26 seconds ahead of Italian teammate Elena Curtoni and 0.44 ahead of two-time world champion Ilka Stuhec.

“The time doesn’t reflect how it felt, because on the top part, which is full of bumps, I was a bit wide in a few areas. The same thing midway down. Clearly, it’s a course that needs to be dissected well. There needs to be the right mix of intensity and tactics,” Goggia said.

“Fortunately there are two more training sessions before Saturday’s race, split up by the super-G," Goggia added. "I’ve got a lot to study and visualize over these next few days.”

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