US skier Mikaela Shiffrin made history with her 83rd win after racing the giant slalom at the Kronplatz resort in the Italian Dolomites, securing her place as one of the greatest skiers of all time. With this win, Shiffrin beats Lindsey Vonn’s women’s World Cup skiing record.
Of Shiffrin’s 83 wins, 51 came in slalom, 18 in giant slalom, five in super-G, and three in downhill. This season has brought Shiffrin nine wins as she set a record for women’s Alpine racers and inched one win closer to the all-time mark for a skier of any gender.
The overall record between men and women is currently held by Swedish ski legend Ingemar Stenmark since 1989. Shiffrin is now just four wins away from breaking that record of 86 victories.
Shiffrin’s 83rd win came after the US ski racer beat runner-up Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland by 0.45 seconds in a giant slalom race in the Italian resort of Kronplatz. After Tuesday’s first run, Shiffrin led Swiss skier Gut-Behrami by 0.13 seconds, and then she pushed as hard as she could to extend her lead on her second trip.
Shiffrin said she was “a bit nervous for the second run” because of the quality of the competition, but “conditions on the hill were perfect.”
Shiffrin’s predecessor, Lindsey Vonn, was 33 years old when she got to 82. With Shiffrin being only 27 as she achieves this new record, the odds are that if she continues to compete at this level for a long time, she could set her own standard, which experts predict to be well above 100 wins.
“It’s mindboggling, really, when you think about the number of years she’s had this level of performance and at an early age,” said US ski team women’s head coach Paul Kristofic. “She’s a remarkable person and a remarkable athlete. Maybe once in a lifetime, you see somebody like this.”
After this big one, Shiffrin is pursuing the record for most wins by a ski racer of any gender. With seven more technical races — slaloms and giant slaloms, Shiffrin’s strength — on the schedule, it’s conceivable that this season she would threaten the record of 86 World Cup victories currently held by Ingemar Stenmark. She has won eight of the 14 World Cup slaloms and giant slaloms contested thus far in 2022-23.
