Liensberger fourth

Series continues! Shiffrin celebrates 5th slalom victory

Mikaela Shiffrin (middle) won in Semmering, ahead of Switzerland's Camille Rast (left) and Lara Colturi (right), who is competing for Albania.(Bild: GEPA)

5th slalom of the season, 5th victory! Mikaela Shiffrin's winning streak continued in Semmering. Katharina Liensberger missed out on a place on the podium and finished fourth.

Just under two months before the Olympics, Katharina Liensberger has arrived in the Ski World Cup winter. In the challenging Semmering night slalom on Sunday, the Vorarlberg native finished fourth ahead of teammate Katharina Truppe, thus achieving by far her best result of the season. US star Mikaela Shiffrin also took victory in the fifth slalom in 2025/26, triumphing ahead of Switzerland's Camille Rast (+0.09) and Lara Colturi (+0.57), who is competing for Albania.

Liensberger (+0.91) and Truppe (+0.93) were not the only ones to make the 8,500 fans in Austria cheer. The 21-year-old Natalie Falch (+4.42) marked her best career result in eleventh place, Katharina Gallhuber rounded off the good ÖSV result in 13th place (+4.93). However, the condition of the slope in the first run caused a lot of discussion.

Here are the results in detail:

Zauberberg threw skiers off in droves
The piste on the Zauberberg was less than magical. It had lost moisture in the dry night air and had been treated with water and salt before the start. In the first run, it threw the skiers off one after the other and created huge time gaps for the "survivors". The Norwegian Bianca Bakke Westhoff in 30th place was 5.94 seconds behind at the halfway point. Only around half of the 77 starters reached the finish, 37 were eliminated - including Katharina Huber and Franziska Gritsch. The ORF reported the highest drop-out rate in the last 25 years.

Mikaela Shiffrin(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

In the second run, the surface showed a much friendlier side and Shiffrin successfully started to catch up with the best run time. However, she used her 106th World Cup victory to criticize herself afterwards. "I'm really happy with my run in second. But it just wasn't safe for the women today. That's not right," said the 30-year-old. "It was better in the second run, but I'm annoyed with how it went."

Liensberger breathed a sigh of relief
Liensberger, who had only finished in single digits once this season in Copper Mountain in sixth place, still has to wait for her first podium finish since March, but is clearly relieved going into the new year. "It wasn't easy to find the right mix in the second run. I got the best out of it and I'm happy to take fourth place," emphasized the 28-year-old.

  However, Truppe remains the most consistent slalom racer from a local perspective. "I'm a bit proud of myself today that I did so well. Tracks weren't always my thing," explained the Carinthian, who now has 16th, 6th, 7th, 4th and 5th places to her name. "I'm more consistent than ever before and that makes me happy."

Falch showed her talent with a high start number
Natalie Falch was one of those who proved in the first run that a high start number is also possible. The 21-year-old Tyrolean delivered by far her best World Cup result with bib number 56. After finishing 26th and 18th in Gurgl and Courchevel respectively, she improved once again, finishing 20th at the halfway point with the fourth-best time in the second run, making a decent leap forward and smiling "mega-satisfied" at the camera. "Last year was very, very hard, I never got it down. It's working really well at the moment."