It was in the winter of 1989 when Ingemar Stenmark drove his last race – and ended his career that had started in 1973. With a total of 86 World Cup victories, the now 66-year-old Swede retired. Until this Friday, no ski racer had managed to achieve so many World Cup victories.
Mikaela Shiffrin has now broken the legendary record of 86 World Cup victories. The American won the giant slalom in Are, Sweden on Friday and was celebrated by the spectators in the finish area.
“It’s a spectacular day,” she said afterwards. Already this Saturday (10.30 a.m./1.30 p.m.) Shiffrin can become the sole record holder with a victory in the slalom.
The Swedish slalom legend had raved about the alpine high-flyer before Shiffrin’s victory in Are. “She’s a lot better than I was. She has good physical strength, she has good technique, a strong head. And I’m also impressed that she’s doing so well in both slalom, super-G and downhill. I could never have been so strong in all these disciplines,” Stenmark praised the woman from Colorado.
In the 1970s and 80s, Stenmark celebrated all 86 victories in the technical disciplines slalom (40) and giant slalom (46). Before her success in Are, Shiffrin was also at the top mainly in the slalom (52), but also won in the giant slalom (20) or parallel (5), in the Super-G (5) and in the downhill (3) as well as in the combination ( 1).
Shifrin, the 27-year-old two-time Olympic ski champion, laid the foundation for success on Friday with the fastest first run, with which she also secured the discipline World Cup. After two runs, Shiffrin was 0.64 seconds ahead of Federica Brignone of Italy. Sweden’s Sara Hector was third (0.92). Already this Saturday (10.30 a.m./1.30 p.m.) Shiffrin can become the sole record holder with a victory in the slalom.
The only German starter, Lena Dürr (Germering), was 32nd in the first run and missed the second run.
