From an incredibly talented 15-year-old to the most decorated skier of all time, Mikaela Shiffrin has come a long way in just 12 years.
The American skier won them Record-breaking 83rd win Tuesday in her 238th race on the World Cup course, the round-the-world competition for the world’s best skiers.
Shiffrin, who broke a tie with former teammate Lindsey Vonn by winning a giant slalom in Italy, has also won two Olympic gold medals and one silver medal, as well as six world titles and five other medals from this biennial competition.
But it’s her World Cup career – and now her pursuit of Ingemar Stenmark’s once-mythical 86 victories total – that has made her one of the greatest skiers in history.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Shiffrin’s World Cup racing career began two days before her 16th birthday in March 2011 in the Czech Republic. Starting number 46 in a giant slalom, she ended up outside the top 30, meaning she didn’t qualify for a second run.
Her first slalom, the discipline she would dominate with 51 victories, came the next day and again she ended up outside the top 30.
Shiffrin’s first podium came in December 2011. With the number 40, she finished third behind skiing greats Marlies Schild, a childhood idol, and Tina Maze.
The first of their 83 wins – and counting – came a year later on December 20, 2012 in Are, Sweden.
Incredible, Shiffrin won the World Cup slalom title this season and added two more victories before a dramatic World Cup final in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. A spectacular second run overtook a 1.17 second lead from Maze, who was having a record-breaking season but was despondent after losing to a rival who had turned 18 three days earlier.
Shiffrin won five season-long World Cup slalom titles in six seasons. The strip was broken after a December 2015 injury in Are while warming up for the race.
The inevitable first World Cup overall title came at age 22 in the 2016-17 season when Shiffrin won 11 races.
It was the start of three titles in a row. The next season included a first downhill win in Lake Louise, Canada – on only her fourth start.
Shiffrin won a record 17 races in 2019, amassed 2,204 World Cup points – second in skiing history after Maze – and finished top five in all but one of her 26 events.
In January 2020 she looked set for a fourth title, with a lead of 370 points after two speed race victories in Bansko, Bulgaria. Then there was a family tragedy.
FAMILY BANDS
Shiffrin’s mother, Eileen, has always traveled with her in an entourage of coaches and mentors. Her father Jeff was a familiar sight at races, easily identifiable by a bushy mustache photographing at the finish area.
In February 2020, Jeff Shiffrin died after an accident at the family home in Colorado.
Shiffrin flew home from Europe to begin a grieving process She was open and honest. After missing races for several weeks and losing her lead in the standings, her planned return was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which ended the season.
A foundation to support young skiers, the Jeff Shiffrin Athlete Resiliency Fund, was established in her father’s name.
Shiffrin then won and bounced back from a fourth overall World Cup title last year a disappointing performance at the Beijing Olympics.
She is now poised to win a fifth giant crystal globe in March, with a clear lead fueled by nine wins this season after Tuesday’s win.
OLYMPIA
At 18, Shiffrin stepped onto the Olympic stage like she belonged.
A fifth place in the giant slalom at the games in Sochi 2014 preceded one dominating wire-to-wire victory in slalom. Shiffrin landed more than half a second ahead of Schild, the best slalom skier in the world at the time.
Four years later in Pyeongchang, Shiffrin wins gold in giant slalom a day before her Fourth place in the slalom. She later won silver in the Alpine Combined, a race that consists of a downhill run and a slalom run.
PEKING BLIP
Shiffrin should be the star of the Beijing 2022 Olympics with medal hopes in all five women’s events. What happened next baffled even her.
Shiffrin pulled out of it giant slalom and slalom within seconds of each run, didn’t really fight for a medal in Downhill and Super-G and couldn’t finish the Slalom in Alpine Combined.
“I’m certainly questioning a lot,” Shiffrin said after her fifth failure. “I’m really disappointed. And I’m really frustrated.”
She will still only be 30 years old when the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina are due. The women’s races are scheduled in Cortina d’Ampezzo, where she won four medals at the 2021 World Championships.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Shiffrin’s first world-level race was at the 2011 Juniors in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, when she was just 15 years old. In a slalom race with a cold, she finished third behind two rivals, both four years older.
As of 2013, Shiffrin won four consecutive world titles in slalom. The series ended in bronze in Cortina 2021, but she took home four medals from that event, including gold in alpine combined.
The combination was her sixth world title. Overall she has 11 medals from 13 events at the worlds. The other two results were top 10 finishes in giant slalom as a teenager.
The next World Championships begin on February 6 in the French resorts of Courchevel and Meribel. Five more medals could be in play.
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