Mikaela Shiffrin claims sporting immortality with incredible World Cup win No.100
Feb 23, 2025·Alpine Skiing
Mikaela Shiffrin (USA/Atomic) has done it. At the age of just 29-years-old the American megastar has claimed her 100th Audi FIS World Cup win.
A feat many thought was simply not possible.
And she did it in typically mind-blowing style too on Sunday afternoon, in Sestriere, Italy.
Just a day after failing to qualify for the second run of a World Cup race for the first time in more than 14 years and battling the mental and physical scars of a traumatic crash in November last year, the most consistently successful skier of all time somehow dug into the depths to produce a stunningly assured, aggressive and accurate pair of Slalom runs to hit her century.
For an athlete who already owns just about every skiing record, this is surely one that will never be matched.
“I don't know that it's possible to dream about a milestone like this. It's too big, it's too long, it takes too much,” Shiffrin said. “I always dreamed about good turns and step by step, and try to be better tomorrow than I was today. And that dream for me is big enough.”
Just like the crowd, the rest of the field and millions watching on TV around the world, Zrinka Ljutic (CRO/Atomic) and Paula Moltzan (USA/Rossignol) will never forget 23 February 2025.
Second place to Shiffrin is a special place to be and Ljutic, who ended second, +0.61 seconds behind, is one of the sport’s undoubted rising stars. While Moltzan (+0.64 seconds) getting to join her compatriot on the podium on such a historic day, was wonderfully fitting.
But ultimately, when Shiffrin races she often wins, and when she races Slalom, she normally wins.
This was not only her record-extending 63rd World Cup Slalom victory – the next most successful skier of either gender is Ingemar Stenmark (SWE) with 40 wins – it was also her seventh World Cup Slalom triumph in her past eight races. And the 11th time in her career that she has won three or more World Cup Slaloms in a single season.
Shiffrin makes history with 'training run'
A dynamic but relaxed-looking first run on a long, difficult course set the stage for Shiffrin’s heroics. Her advantage however, was just a miniscule 0.09-seconds over Ljutic, winner of three of the past four World Cup Slaloms.
Given this, the internal battles she has faced of late and the immense pressure of creating history, many racers would surely have come out the gate a little hesitant for the second run.
But Shiffrin is no mortal. Somehow treating it “like a training run”, Shiffrin produced a run fitting of her extraordinary achievement.
Showing off a technique that has long been the envy of past and present skiing greats, Shiffrin increased her advantage at each of the first three splits, before cruising to victory in a combined time of one minute 50.33 seconds.
It was an exhibition of Slalom skiing from the very best ever, who had to look once, twice, three times at the clock before falling to the snow in disbelief.
“I didn't know if it said fourth or first. A hundred times later, and I still can't find the darn scoreboard,” Shiffrin laughed, between tears.
The fact that Shiffrin had spent 60 days in recovery from severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound after that Killington crash, while openly continuing to fight “PTSD” and “mental trauma”, only makes her achievement even more remarkable.
“It's been hard to find the right momentum and the right flow and to work through the injury and to come back and compete with these women who are skiing so strong and so fast,” Shiffrin explained. “I have wondered in the last weeks so many times whether it is the right thing to come back.
“But in the end, in order to keep moving forward, and to finish this recovery, I have to be in the start gate, and I have to experience these emotions when they're good and when they're bad, and that's really important. Today was just an amazing day in the middle of some really tough months.
“Today a lot of things had to go right for me and actually wrong for some others. Camille (Rast, the recently crowned Swiss Slalom world champion), on the first run, was just so fast (before crashing within meters of the finish line). A lot of things had to go right in my direction for this to happen but in the end, I did something right too.”
She certainly did. For the 100th time overall, and the second in Sestriere.
“Thank you, everybody has been so nice and so supportive, all of my teammates and competitors and coaches in the whole World Cup. I am so grateful,” added Shiffrin who also won in the Italian resort back in 2016.
“Thank you and the fans, thank you, thank you so much.
A snapshot of Shiffrin’s 100 in numbers
Numbers alone cannot do justice to Shiffrin’s gasp-inducing achievement, but they do help give it context.
Her first World Cup came on 12 December 2012 in the Slalom in Are, Sweden, when she was aged 17. In the following 4,456 days she has won one Alpine combined event, two Parallel Slaloms, three city events, four Downhills, five Super Gs, 22 Giant Slaloms and 63 Slaloms.
She remains the only Alpine skier to win all six World Cup disciplines, an achievement she ticked off in 2019.
With 63 Slalom wins, she is now by some distance the most decorated Slalom skier of any gender with Ingemar Stenmark (40 wins) and Marlies Schild (35 wins) her nearest competitors.
She is also two clear of Swiss great Vreni Schneider (SUI) as the women’s best World Cup Giant Slalom skier of all time.
And if that lot is not enough, her win marks the 155th time she has been on a World Cup podium, meaning she snatches a share of that all-time record, alongside Stenmark.
'Really happy I got to be here today'
No surprise that second-placed Ljutic’s main emotion, was one of delight that she will forever be able to tell everyone she was just over half-a-second back when Shiffrin made history.
“I am really happy that I got to be here today. She was fighting so hard, she really deserved (it). She finally took this 100th win and it was special that I could witness it today,” the 21-year-old Croatian said of Shiffrin.
With three wins and a second place, Ljutic does take control of the season-long race for the Slalom Crystal Globe, jumping ahead of Rast.
Third place for Moltzan caps a superb few weeks for the long-time teammate of Shiffrin’s. After securing a first ever World Cup GS podium in January, she grabbed her maiden individual World Championship medal, finishing third in GS in Saalbach last week. Now, a third career World Cup Slalom podium sends the 30-year-old off for a short break with a big smile on her face.
“We have four days off, so I am going to go to London. I have been in the mountains since December 18th, so I need a change of pace," Moltzan said. "A little vacation.”
The last word can only go to the greatest of all time, for whom a vacation is surely due too.
“We didn't take the easy way, that's for sure,” Shiffrin laughed. “But I’m very thankful for this day.”
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