American skier Mikaela Shiffrin set the all-time World Cup record for most career wins with 87 by winning a slalom on Saturday.
Shiffrin broke a tie with Ingemar Stenmark on the list of all-time overall winners between men and women. The Swede competed in the 1970s and 1980s.
Shiffrin had matched Stenmark’s mark of 86 wins with victory in a giant slalom on Friday.
“Pretty hard to comprehend,” Shiffrin said of the record.
After finishing the final run, the American crouched down and rested her head on her knees. Her brother, Taylor Shiffrin, came out of her and hugged her during the award 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 victory of the season and a career-record 53rd victory in the discipline.
Shiffrin dominated the first race and posted the fifth fastest time in the second to beat Swiss skier Wendy Holdener by 0.92 seconds.
Third-place home favorite Anna Swenn Larsson was the last runner to finish within a second of Shiffrin’s time.
“The best feeling is skiing the second moto when of course you want to win, you have an advantage so you have to be a bit smart, but also, he just wanted to be fast and ski the second moto like his own race,” he said. shiffrin.
“I did exactly that and that’s amazing.”
Shiffrin has already secured his fifth overall championship and the discipline titles in slalom and GS.
“It’s nice to run today. After such an incredible day yesterday, I don’t feel any pressure,” said Shiffrin after the opening race.
Mikaela Shiffrin accelerates during a slalom race in Are, Sweden.
(Alessandro Trovati/Associated Press)
The victory gave Shiffrin the all-time record 12 years after his first World Cup race, as a 15-year-old in a GS at 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 in a location where many key moments in Shiffrin’s career occurred. At the Swedish lakeside resort, she earned her maiden World Cup victory in 2012 and took slalom gold at the 2019 world championships to become the first female skier to win the world title in a discipline four times in a row. .
However, Are was also the place where she suffered a knee injury that kept her off the slopes for two months in the 2015-16 season, and where she was due to run again in March 2020 after the death of her father last month. former. , but those races were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
