Two minutes after securing her 87th career win, Mikaela Shiffrin finally understood the importance of holding the record for most World Cup wins.
In the middle of the award ceremony, a man in a red jacket unexpectedly stepped out of the crowd, and it was at that moment that Shiffrin first realized what it all meant to her.
It was her brother Taylor, who had secretly moved to Sweden and had now come to hug her.
“I’ve said it the whole time, I don’t know how to define it,” Shiffrin said of the record. “But when you have these special moments … to finally see my brother and [sister-in-law] Christy and my mom [and coach, Eileen] today, that’s what makes it memorable.”
Shiffrin set the outright World Cup record for career wins by winning the slalom on Saturday, breaking a tie with Ingmar Stenmark on the all-time wins list for men or women. Swedish skiers competed in the 1970s and 80s.
Shiffrin matched Stenmark’s mark of 86 wins with a victory in a giant slalom on Friday.
“It’s very hard to understand,” said Shiffrin, who dropped her head to her knees after completing the final run. She was congratulated by runner-up Wendy Holdner of Switzerland and third-place home favorite Anna Sven Larsson.
The victory gave Shiffrin the outright record 12 years after her first World Cup race, at the age of 15 in a giant slalom in Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic.
In a course interview, Shiffrin said he was “very proud of the team” for being “strong and positive” and “having the right goals, this whole season”.
Shiffrin set the record less than a month after his head coach Mike Day left the team in the second week of the World Championships in France.
Day’s departure, however, hasn’t affected Shiffrin’s achievements, as she won giant slalom gold and slalom silver at worlds, won her overall World Cup title at the speed race in Norway last weekend, and won back-to-back World Cup titles in Sweden. Back celebrated the victory. Became the winningest ski racer in the 56-year history of the World Cup.
Saturday’s result marked the American’s sixth slalom win of the season and the record-extending 53rd of her career in the discipline. Shiffrin also has a women’s record-equalling 20 giant slalom wins, as well as five in super-G, five in parallel, three in downhill, and one in combined.
“It’s very hard to describe – and it’s not over yet, which is even more ridiculous,” said Shiffrin, who turned 28 on Monday and is expected to continue until at least the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. Is.
Aside from Stenmark’s record, there was no pressure on Shiffrin’s shoulders as she raced in her 246th career World Cup race on Saturday, having already clinched the discipline’s title in the slalom. On Friday, she clinched the Giant Slalom season title.
“I still had the feeling at the beginning of this race that I have every race. It’s like, I shouldn’t feel the pressure. Running.
Shiffrin posted the fifth-fastest time in the second run, beating Holdner by 0.92 seconds. Sven Larsson was 0.95 behind and was the last racer to finish within a second of Shiffrin. Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzon finished 1.54 behind fourth in the American’s first race since fracturing her left-hand last month.
“The best feeling is to ski on the second run, when of course you want to win, you have the lead, so you have to be smart, but at the same time, I wanted to be fast and ski the second run like its own race,” Shiffrin said. “I did exactly that, and it’s amazing.”
The race took place at a venue where many important moments in Shiffrin’s career occurred. At the Swedish lakeside resort, she earned her first World Cup win in 2012 and took slalom gold at the 2019 World Championships, becoming the first skier to win four consecutive world titles in a discipline.
However, they were also where she suffered a knee injury that kept her off the slopes for two months in the 2015–16 season and where she was scheduled to race again in March 2020 following the death of her father the previous month; Those races were called off at short notice after Shiffrin arrived in Sweden because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Shiffrin is set to compete in three more races this season before next week’s World Cup Finals in Soldeu, Andorra.
While she had planned to skip Wednesday’s downhill, she would race in a super-G the following day and in a slalom and giant slalom during the weekend.