Race of the century: Shiffrin makes history, ties podium record

SESTRIERE, Italy — Mikaela Shiffrin is 100 percent the best in skiing's World Cup history book.

Shiffrin's record-extending 100th career World Cup race win Sunday fulfilled a quest put on hold by a serious crash in November.

Back to racing in her favored slalom event, Shiffrin kept, and added to, her first-run lead to finish 0.61 seconds ahead of Zrinka Ljutic. Shiffrin's US teammate Paula Moltzan was third, 0.64 back.

The 29-year-old Shiffrin also tied an all-time World Cup record for men and women, as her 155th career top-3 finish on the podium matched Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark.

Shiffrin crossed the finish line and took a long look toward the scoreboard showing her victory — which she later said she could not find. She then looked again over her left shoulder with an expression of amazement.

She lay down on the snow with her right hand to her helmet, and was helped to her feet by Moltzan who hugged her.

Shiffrin cried at first when asked in a post-race interview what it meant after all she had been through in the past few months.

"Everyone had been so nice and so supportive. I am so grateful, thank you," she said, adding later it was "just an amazing day in the middle of some really tough months.

"I have wondered in the last weeks so many times whether it is the right thing to come back," said Shiffrin, who had been a distant 10th in a Jan 30 slalom at Courchevel, France.

Shiffrin's 99th win was earned exactly three months ago in a slalom at Gurgl, Austria.

No 100 had been within clear sight one week later when Shriffin crashed out of a giant slalom at Killington, Vermont, while racing fast as the first-run leader.

The injuries she suffered in a tumbling fall — severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound — sidelined her for several weeks and left "PTSD-like "anxiety about racing giant slalom.

In two giant slaloms at Sestriere, she placed 25th on Friday and on Saturday finished outside the top-30 fastest racers in the first run for the first time since 2012.

Shiffrin showed no sign of nerves Sunday, though, with an aggressive second run to victory, a full half-second faster than Ljutic who is a three-time winner this season in World Cup slaloms.

"A lot of things had to go right in my direction for this to happen. But I did something right, too," a tearful Shiffrin said minutes after the race.

Shiffrin and Stenmark are the two greatest record setters in the World Cup's 58-year history.

"She's much better than I was. You cannot compare," Stenmark said in an interview with The Associated Press two years ago.

His record of 86 World Cup wins was broken by Shiffrin in March 2023, almost 34 years after his last win. Stenmark's 86th win — a giant slalom at Aspen, Colorado in February 1989 — also was his 155th and last podium result.

Shiffrin matched Stenmark's tally of top-3 results in six fewer starts. Sunday was her 278th World Cup race, and Stenmark's last podium was in his 284th, according to the ski-db.com site.

Shiffrin's injury absence means she is unlikely to add to her eight career titles in the season-long World Cup slalom standings. Even with 100 race points Sunday, she is just sixth and trailing leader Ljutic by 163 with two races left: March 9 in Are, Sweden, and the season-ending March 27 race in Sun Valley, Idaho.

"I'm really happy that I got to be here today," the 21-year Ljutic said of Shiffrin's century. "She was fighting so hard."

The standings had been led by Camille Rast, the new world champion from Switzerland, this month when Shiffrin was fifth. Rast crashed out Sunday in the first run, three gates from the finish when she was set for a fast time.

Moltzan's fifth career podium in the World Cup followed a world championships bronze medal in giant slalom during her career year at age 30.

"I just wanted to put everything on the line and see how it played out," said Moltzan, who is rewarding herself with some vacation days in London.

Agencies via Xinhua