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New York Times
24-02-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Mikaela Shiffrin's 100 World Cup wins: A career of dominance, by the numbers
After a three-month delay, American star Mikaela Shiffrin won her milestone 100th World Cup race on Sunday, a number never seen before in Alpine skiing. Shiffrin has been the all-time leader in wins at the sport's top level, men or women, for two years, and she looks far from done. At 29, Shiffrin now has three wins this season despite missing two months of competition after an injury suffered in a crash in November. She returned last month and, though still struggling with the mental and physical toll of the injury, has quickly found her way back to form in her best discipline, the slalom. She's now won three of the four slalom events in which she's competed this season. The only time she didn't was in her first race back from the injury, in late January. Advertisement She won her first World Cup race at 17. She was an Olympic gold medalist at 18. And in her early 20s, she redefined what was possible in the sport over a three-year stretch that brought an astounding 40 World Cup victories — a total that by itself would be in seventh place on the women's all-time wins list. It's tough to make sense of that unprecedented dominance. But here's a look at it all, in six charts. No nation has been kinder to Shiffrin than Austria, where she's won 23 races, 13 more than her home country in second place. That's thanks in part to Austria's prevalence on the slalom schedule, frequently featuring three or four tour stops a year. All 23 of those wins are in either slalom or giant slalom. Only 22 women have more World Cup wins total than Shiffrin has in Austria. Sunday's win came in Sestriere, Italy, just the second time in her career she's won at that venue. Her other five Italian wins came in Kronplatz (three times), Bormio and Cortina d'Ampezzo. Her winningest single venue? That's Levi, Finland, where she's a seven-time winner, including earlier this season before her injury. Second on the list is a tie between Are, Sweden — the site of the next World Cup slalom event, March 8-9 — and Killington, Vt., near where she trained at Burke Mountain Academy and the site of her crash in November. She's won at each six times. Since winning her first in December 2012, Shiffrin has posted at least three victories in every World Cup season since. Her best year was 2018-19, when she put on a dazzling all-discipline display and won a record 17 races in a single year. That year, she became the first skier ever to win the overall, super-G, giant slalom and slalom World Cup titles in the same season. Only 27 women have won more World Cup titles in their careers than Shiffrin won that season. Advertisement Slalom is by far her best discipline, with 63 of her wins coming there. But she's won at least four times in each of the four main individual disciplines. She hasn't won any event besides slalom since December 2023, when she won a giant slalom in Lienz, Austria, and a downhill in St. Moritz, Switzerland. If you were to separate Shiffrin's slalom wins from the rest of her victories and consider those totals as two separate skiers, they would rank as the second- and eighth-winningest women's World Cup skiers of all time. Her 63 victories in slalom would trail only Lindsey Vonn's 82 total titles. Her 37 wins in other disciplines would tie with Austrian great Marlies Schild not much further down the list. On the men's side, only Austria's Marcel Hirscher (67) and Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark (86) have more overall World Cup wins than Shiffrin has slalom titles. Stenmark, who starred in the 1970s and '80s, held the record for more than 40 years before Shiffrin passed him in March 2023. In 2015, when Vonn set the women's all-time record of 63 World Cup wins, a young Shiffrin was just in her third World Cup season and had 12 wins to her name. Four years later, Vonn retired with 82 wins and Shiffrin had closed the gap, trailing Vonn by 20. Another four years later, Shiffrin passed the idle Vonn in Kronplatz, scoring her 83rd win. Shiffrin has since added 17 more to the unprecedented total. Vonn came out of retirement this year, and though catching back up to Shiffrin isn't in the cards, she's hoping to qualify for the 2026 Olympics. Her best finish on the World Cup tour this year was a fourth-place finish in a super-G in January. Vonn and Shiffrin were teammates on the 2018 Olympic team, with each winning medals. There's no statistical asterisk here. Among the six winningest female Alpine skiers of all time, Shiffrin has the best winning percentage, getting her 100 wins in 278 starts. Vonn got her 82 wins over 402 starts (and counting). Shiffrin won her 82nd race in her 233rd start. Her current win percentage applied over 402 starts would yield 144 race wins. Advertisement Austria's Annemarie Moser-Proell, who ruled the 1970s, and Germany's Vreni Schneider, who starred in the late '80s and early '90s, won at similar rates to Shiffrin (and made podiums at a higher clip) but both competed in just 11 World Cup seasons at a time when there were generally fewer races per season, averaging around 15 races per. Shiffrin is in her 13th season, averaging over 21 races. One other bit of history Shiffrin achieved Sunday: Her 155 podium finishes are tied with Stenmark for the most all time. Source: OK, now we're just having fun. Shiffrin has more wins in 278 races, topping an entire field of the world's best skiers each time, than 11 teams across the big four North American men's leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB) have in their last 278 regular-season games. That stretch goes back to 2007 for the NFL. The Cleveland Browns and Jacksonville Jaguars fall short of 100 wins in that span. Since December 2021, eight NBA and NHL teams have won fewer than 100 out of 278 games, the worst of which is the San Jose Sharks, with just 75 wins. The Chicago White Sox are the lone MLB team shy of the mark with just 85 wins since May 2023. (Top illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photo: Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images)
New York Times
21-02-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Mikaela Shiffrin returns to giant slalom for first time since injury, finishes 25th
American Alpine skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin finished 25th in her first World Cup giant slalom race since November, the latest step back in her recovery from an injury that kept her off the slopes for two months. With a combined time of 2:12.69, Federica Brignone fought off an illness to win the race Friday in front of her home-country fans in Sestriere, Italy, coming back from second position after the first run to top New Zealand's Alice Robinson by 0.40 seconds. Brignone and Robinson also finished 1-2 in the giant slalom at last week's world championships. Norway's Thea Louise Stjernesun took third, 1.57 back. Advertisement It was the 33rd career World Cup win and 15th in giant slalom for Brignone, who leads the overall World Cup standings and has six wins this season. She won silver in giant slalom at the 2022 Olympics. American Paula Moltzan, the bronze-medal winner at worlds, was in third after the first run and was flying down the second before a big slip in the course's final section cost her a podium spot. She finished sixth. Nina O'Brien (eighth) and A.J. Hurt (12th) also finished in the top 15 for the Americans. Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and eight-time world champion, was 18th after the first run, 2.89 seconds back of the leader Robinson, finishing in 1:08.93. She completed the second run in 1:08.41, the second-slowest time of the 28 skiers who made it to the finish line. Overall, she was 4.65 seconds off Brignone's pace. Just being back in the field for this event was a notable moment for Shiffrin. Eleven days ago, she announced that she would skip the giant slalom at the world championships, citing 'mental obstacles' as she continued her recovery from a crash in the same event in Killington, Vt., on Nov. 30. She acknowledged Thursday she's still not fully past it but said she felt well enough to compete in Sestriere. 'I do not yet feel entirely myself,' she wrote on social media, '…but I do feel enough of myself to be here…and for now, that is enough.' After withdrawing from the giant slalom at worlds, Shiffrin entered the team combined event instead, finishing third in the slalom leg to win the gold medal with U.S. teammate Breezy Johnson. She also competed in her signature event, the slalom, finishing fifth — 0.05 seconds from a record-breaking medal. Friday's race in Sestriere, where Shiffrin won the slalom competition in December 2016, was her first giant slalom since that day in Killington, when she was vying for her 100th career World Cup win on a familiar hill, not far from where she once trained at Burke Mountain Academy. But the crash in the second run there left her with a puncture wound in her abdomen that kept her out of competition until late January. Advertisement She returned on Jan. 30, finishing 10th in a slalom race in Courchevel, France, before heading to worlds. Before the injury, Shiffrin, 29, was off to a soaring start to the season. She won the first two slalom events — in Levi, Finland, and Gurgl, Austria — in November to reach 99 World Cup wins and make a celebration on home soil seem inevitable. Then, in Killington, she posted the top time in the first run of the giant slalom, looking poised to hit the 100 mark — never before achieved in Alpine skiing — before she lost control during the second run, fell to the snow, flipped and slid into the safety netting. She missed the next day's slalom race before announcing an extended absence. As Shiffrin returned and pursued history on the World Cup tour and at world championships, where she is now tied for the all-time lead in medals won, she has cautioned that returning to top form will be a process. 'It's eight weeks since I had surgery,' she said after the world championship slalom. 'It's six weeks since I was laying in bed with a drainage tube sticking out of me. So, it's like, perspective is important. … It takes time.' Friday's giant slalom replaced a December event at Tremblant in Quebec, Canada, that was canceled due to unsuitable weather conditions. The originally scheduled Sestriere giant slalom race is set for Saturday, with a slalom race on Sunday. After this weekend, there are two slalom weekends left on the World Cup calendar for the women — in Are, Sweden, March 8-9 and in Sun Valley, Idaho, at the World Cup Finals, March 22-27. (Photo of Mikaela Shiffrin during Thursday's giant slalom: Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images)
Boston Globe
19-02-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Killington will not host World Cup in 2025 due to chairlift installation, aims to hold event again in 2026
Colorado's Copper Mountain was announced as a replacement venue for Killington in 2025, though the New England resort hopes to reclaim its signature racing event in 2026. 'Because of the new Superstar lift replacement this summer into early winter, the Audi FIS Ski World Cup will take place at Copper Mountain, Colorado over Thanksgiving weekend 2025,' Killington said in its announcement. 'The race is expected to return to Killington Thanksgiving Weekend 2026.' Advertisement The event has become regionally popular, regularly drawing more than 30,000 fans over the two days of racing (with the best women's racers in the world competing in both giant slalom and slalom). Shiffrin, a former student at Vermont's Burke Mountain Academy, has always been a popular draw. The 29-year-old, who is the all-time leader in career World Cup wins with 99, has won six of the eight slalom competitions hosted at Killington over the years. In 2024, she was only a few gates away from potentially winning the giant slalom competition for the first time at Killington — and what would've been her 100th career World Cup victory — but While Killington is confident the race will return to Vermont — given its popularity both with fans and athletes — it has not yet been officially agreed to by FIS, the organization that governs the World Cup circuit. Advertisement 'Killington, US Ski Team and FIS want to host the event at Killington in 2026,' a resort representative explained, 'however formal agreement for that to happen has not been signed yet, which is why we communicated its expected return.' Beyond the implications for the Killington Cup, the Superstar chairlift replacement will also affect the current ski season. Killington is known for annually hosting the region's longest ski season. This year, the expected closure of the Superstar quad will be on April 13, well before the usual ending point, which occasionally stretches 'While we know spring skiing and riding will look a little different this year, this $12 million investment will elevate the guest experience for decades to come,' said Mike Solimano, president and CEO of Killington Resort, in the announcement. 'That said, we're still committed to hosting the longest ski season in the East and will stay open as long as Mother Nature allows.' Other lifts, including the Snowdon triple, the Canyon quad, and the North Ridge triple, will remain open 'as long as conditions allow.' The K-1 Gondola is scheduled to keep running until May 11. Killington, after years of ownership by outside groups, was Hayden Bird can be reached at
