Besides Ingemar Stenmark from Sweden, who won an impressive 40 World Cup slaloms between 1974 and 1987, no one else has come close to reaching that milestone.But now, Mikaela Shiffrin seems destined to join that elite club as she edges towards her 40th slalom victory, aiming to surpass her personal best.
Shiffrin expressed her views on records, saying, “Records are meant to be broken. Somebody is going to come and break my record, I hope because that means maybe I have inspired someone as much as Marlies inspired me. If I can inspire any young athlete as much as she inspired me, then I did my job in this sport.”
With over 10,000 fans cheering her on at the Zauberberg, Shiffrin capitalized on a commanding first-run lead to clinch victory, finishing 0.29 seconds ahead of Petra Vlhova from Slovakia and 0.38 seconds ahead of Wendy Holdener from Switzerland, marking her 51st career win.With this win on Saturday, Shiffrin stands as the only skier, male or female, to have won 15 World Cup races in a single calendar year, surpassing Marcel Hirscher from Austria, the men’s overall champion, who won 14 times in 2018.
Both Shiffrin and Hirscher have broken Ingemar Stenmark’s forty-year-old record. While Shiffrin has competed in 27 events this year, Stenmark won 13 out of 19 races in 1979 when the World Cup did not include super-G races, parallel slaloms, or city events.The only World Cup slalom Shiffrin did not win in 2018 was in Switzerland in January, right before the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Despite missing out on a medal in South Korea and finishing fourth in her best event, Shiffrin bounced back and regained her form to dominate the World Cup since its return in March.Out of the final 12 events, Shiffrin has won 11, making it 27 wins out of the last 33 World Cup slaloms she participated in.
Reflecting on her achievements in 2018, including an Olympic gold in giant slalom and a consecutive overall World Cup title, the 23-year-old Shifrin stated, “It’s a little bit unbelievable, in every meaning of the word. A lot has happened this year. My biggest improvement this year was, when people talked about the records, to be able to hear it and respond but not let it be a distraction.”
