US Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates her 87th World Cup victory after the women’s slalom competition during the Alpine World Cup in Are, on March 11, 2023. Mikaela Shiffrin became the most successful racer in the history of World Cup skiing as she won her 87th World Cup event with victory in the slalom at Are on Saturday. | Photo Credit: AFP
American skier Mikaela Shiffrin set the outright World Cup record for most career victories with 87 by winning a slalom Saturday.
Shiffrin broke a tie with Ingemar Stenmark on the all-time overall winners list between men and women. The Swede competed in the 1970s and 80s.
Shiffrin had matched Stenmark’s mark of 86 wins with victory in a giant slalom Friday.
“Pretty hard to comprehend,” Shiffrin said about the record.
After finishing the final run, the American crouched and rested her head on her knees. Her bother, Taylor Shiffrin, then came out and hugged her during the winners ceremony.
“My brother and sister-in-law are here and I didn’t know they were coming, that makes this so special,” Shiffrin said.
Saturday’s result marked the American’s sixth slalom win of the season and the record-extending 53rd career win in the discipline.
Shiffrin dominated the first run and posted the fifth-fastest time in the second to beat Swiss skier Wendy Holdener by 0.92 seconds.
Thrird-place home favorite Anna Swenn Larsson was the last racer to finish within a second of Shiffrin's time.
“The best feeling is to ski on the second run when of course you want to win, you have a lead so you have to be sort of be smart but also, I just wanted to be fast, too, and ski the second run like its own race,” Shiffrin said.
“I did exactly that and that is amazing.”
Shiffrin has already locked up her fifth overall championship and the discipline titles in slalom and GS.
“It’s nice to race today. After such an incredible day yesterday, I feel like no pressure,” Shiffrin said after the opening run.
The victory gave Shiffrin the outright record 12 years to the day after her first race on the World Cup, as a 15-year-old at a GS in Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic.
Shiffrin is set to compete in three more races this season at next week’s World Cup Finals.
The race took place at a venue where many key moments in Shiffrin’s career happened. At the Swedish lakeside resort, she earned her first World Cup win in 2012 and took slalom gold at the 2019 world championships to become the first skier to win the world title in one discipline four times in a row.
However, Are was also the place where she sustained a knee injury that kept her away from the slopes for two months in the 2015-16 season, and where she was due to race again in March 2020 after the death of her father the previous month, but those races were called off because of the coronavirus pandemic.
