Shiffrin becomes skiing’s GOAT with 87th World Cup win

American skier Mikaela Shiffrin has set one of sport’s great landmarks, taking the outright World Cup record for most career victories with 87 by winning a slalom in the Swedish resort of Are.

Shiffrin made an irresistible claim to being the greatest World Cup alpine skier in history as she surpassed the record of 86 set by Swedish men’s slalom legend Ingemar Stenmark in 1989.

Are is the resort where where she won her first race more than a decade ago and it was also apt that she broke the record in her favoured event, the slalom, in Stenmark’s native land.

Shiffrin had matched Stenmark’s mark of 86 wins with victory in a giant slalom Friday.

Saturday’s result marked the American’s sixth slalom win of the season and the record-extending 53rd career win in the discipline.

Shiffrin led after the first run and triumphed by 0.92 seconds overall, beating Swiss Wendy Holdener with a winning time of 1 minute 41.77 seconds combined. Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson was third.

Such is her dominance in women’s skiing that Shiffrin has already wrapped up a fifth overall World Cup title, as well as the slalom and giant slalom titles. The season finale is not until next week in Andorra.

Asked what it felt like to be the most successful World Cup skier ever, she said: “It is hard to comprehend that thought. It went exactly as I wanted and that’s amazing.”

The two-time Olympic and seven-time world champion also paid tribute to those who have helped her throughout her career.

“It’s pretty incredible, I just want to say thank you for that,” she added.

Shiffrin won her first World Cup race in a slalom in Are on December 20, 2012, at age 17, and she has never looked back.

She beat compatriot Lindsey Vonn’s women’s record 82 wins in January, with many experts now believing she can also reach the 100 mark if she stays healthy.

Shiffrin has won a World Cup discipline record 53 slaloms, 20 giant slaloms, five super-G and parallel races each, three downhills and one alpine combined.

Her 87th victory came in the 246th World Cup race which also marked her 136th podium finish.

Stenmark won all of his races in slalom (46) and giant slalom (40), his 86th and final victory, and 155th podium, coming in the 228th of his 230 career World Cup races in the 1970s and 1980s.

With DPA