Mikaela Shiffrin earns 100th World Cup win, joins exclusive century club

Yahoo

23-02-2025

Mikaela Shiffrin has earned a record-extending 100th career Alpine skiing World Cup win, coming back from major injury to join a short list of athletes across all winter sports with triple-digit victories.
Shiffrin won a slalom by 61 hundredths of a second over Croatian Zrinka Ljutic combining times from two runs in Sestriere, Italy, on Sunday.
Minnesotan Paula Moltzan took third. It's the third time of Shiffrin's record-tying 155 career Alpine World Cup podiums that she's joined by another American.
Shiffrin crossed the finish line and took multiple glances in the direction of a scoreboard before dropping down and lying on the snow. Moltzan helped her up, and they hugged.
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After a podium ceremony, a 60-second highlight video was shown of Shiffrin's celebrations and victory interview clips over her career.
An interviewer then said, "After all you've been through these last months, 100 World Cup victories." Shiffrin, through tears, thanked her.
"Everybody's been so nice and so supportive," she said. "All of my teammates and competitors and coaches in the whole World Cup. I'm so grateful, thank you, and the fans, thank you so much."
Shiffrin returned to the top in her sixth race back since missing two months following a Nov. 30 race crash. She sustained a puncture wound that tore oblique muscles and came very close to piercing organs. Shiffrin had been bidding for win No. 100 in that Nov. 30 giant slalom, leading after the first run before crashing in the second run.
Shiffrin returned to competition Jan. 30 and placed 10th and fifth in her first two slaloms back (plus won the World Championships team combined with Breezy Johnson with the third-fastest slalom run).
She skipped the giant slalom at the World Championships, citing mental obstacles specific to GS coming back from the Nov. 30 crash. She returned to GS racing in Sestriere on Friday and Saturday.
"I do not yet feel entirely myself…but I do feel enough of myself to be here…and for now, that is enough," she posted before her first GS races back.
On Friday, she placed 25th. On Saturday, she was 33rd in the opening GS run, not qualifying for the 30-skier second run for the first time since 2012 (when she was 17 years old, two months before her first World Cup win). She then trained slalom.
Then on Sunday, she had the fastest opening slalom run by nine hundredths over Ljutic. She was fourth-fastest in the second run skiing on battered snow as the 30th and final starter.
"I think it's pretty special to share it with Paula, my teammate," she said. "I could hear everybody cheering from the start when she went, and I thought, OK, just like a day of training. It's like, we just keep pushing, and she pushes, and I push, and I made it achievable."
Shiffrin is commemorating No. 100 by partnering with Share Winter Foundation to raise $100,000 for learn to ski and snowboard programs for youth who otherwise would not have access to the sports.
'I know that not everyone is blessed with the good fortune I have come across; in fact, very few are, and over the years, the lack of accessibility for a diverse group of people in winter sports has funneled us into a very not diverse community,' Shiffrin said in a press release. 'I see this 100 victory conversation as an opportunity to bring more eyes and, ideally, more passion to the sport. It's incredible, of course, but I'd like to turn the spotlight to something bigger than me.
'Helping Share Winter bring more kids to the mountain is really meaningful. It's far bigger than me winning 100 races. This will make that 100th victory one of the most meaningful to me."
Over the last 12 years, Shiffrin has dealt with a range of hardships, both physical and mental, and returned to the top of podiums each time.
In March 2023, she broke Swede Ingemar Stenmark's Alpine record of 86 World Cup wins. Now she has reached a 100-victory milestone that few athletes have achieved across all winter sports World Cups.
Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjørgen won 114 individual World Cup races before retiring in 2018 with a record 15 Winter Olympic medals.
Swiss skier Conny Kissling won 106 times in the 1980s and early 1990s, with most of the victories coming in an event combining moguls and aerials (which, separately, are Olympic disciplines) and acro or ballet (which is not an Olympic discipline).
Swiss Amelie Wagner-Reymond earned 164 World Cup victories from 2007-23 in telemark skiing, which is not an Olympic discipline.
Shiffrin reached 100 before her 30th birthday on March 13 by starting her tally early, dominating slalom for most of the last 12 years (63 World Cup slalom victories are 28 more than any other woman in history) and also winning the most giant slaloms in women's World Cup history (22). She stayed relatively injury-free in a high-risk sport until two crashes in 2024.
The women's Alpine skiing World Cup continues next weekend with two downhills and a super-G in Kvitfjell, Norway.
Mikaela Shiffrin's most memorable of her 99 World Cup wins
Mikaela Shiffrin's most memorable FIS Alpine skiing World Cup wins from her career dating to 2012.
Nick Zaccardi,
Nick Zaccardi,