SESTRIERE, Italy (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin is 100% the best in skiing’s World Cup history book.
Shiffrin’s record-extending 100th career World Cup race win Sunday fulfilled a quest put on hold by a serious crash in November.
Back to racing in her favored slalom event, Shiffrin kept and added to her first-run lead to finish 0.61 seconds ahead of Zrinka Ljutic. Shiffrin’s U.S. teammate Paula Moltzan was third, 0.64 back.
The 29-year-old Shiffrin also tied an all-time World Cup record for men and women, as her 155th career top-3 finish on the podium matched Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark.
Shiffrin crossed the finish line and took a long look at the scoreboard showing her victory. She then looked again over her left shoulder with an expression of amazement.
She lay down on the snow with her right hand to her helmet, and was helped to her feet by Moltzan who hugged her.
Shiffrin cried at first when she was asked in a post-race interview what it meant after all she had been through in the past few months.
“Everyone had been so nice and so supportive. I am so grateful, thank you,” she said.
Shiffrin's 99th win was earned exactly three months ago in a slalom at Gurgl, Austria.
No. 100 had been within clear sight one week later when Shriffin crashed out of a giant slalom at Killington, Vermont, while racing fast as the first-run leader.
The injuries she suffered in a tumbling fall — severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound — sidelined her for several weeks and left “PTSD-like” anxiety about racing giant slalom.
In two giant slaloms at Sestriere, she placed 25th Friday and on Saturday finished outside the top-30 fastest racers in the first run for the first time since 2012.
Shiffrin showed no sign of nerves with an aggressive second run to victory, a full half-second faster than Ljutic who is a three-time winner this season in World Cup slaloms.
“A lot of things had to go right in my direction for this to happen. But I did something right, too,” a tearful Shiffrin said.
Shiffrin and Stenmark are the two greatest record setters in the World Cup’s 58-year history.
“She’s much better than I was. You cannot compare,” Stenmark said in an interview with The Associated Press two years ago.
His record of 86 World Cup wins was broken by Shiffrin in March 2023, almost 34 years after his last win. Stenmark’s 86th win — a giant slalom at Aspen, Colorado in February 1989 — also was his 155th and last podium result.
Shiffrin matched Stenmark's tally of top-3 results in six fewer starts. Sunday was her 278th World Cup race and Stenmark's last podium was in his 284th, according to the ski-db.com site.
___
https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
The Associated Press
