Mikaela Shiffrin makes history, matching Ingemar Stenmark's record for World Cup victories

Constantly being asked about Ingemar Stenmark's record and when she was going to match it didn't lessen the magnitude of the moment when it finally happened.

Mikaela Shiffrin put her hands on her helmet and bowed her head after clinching her 86th World Cup victory Friday, tying the all-time record Stenmark set more than three decades ago. She then put her hands to her cheeks, the look on her face a mixture of awe and disbelief.

"This is kind of a wild day," Shiffrin said after winning the giant slalom in Are, Sweden, the site of her very first World Cup victory and Stenmark’s home country.

"It’s a pretty spectacular position to be in," Shiffrin said. "I don’t take it for granted to be in this place where people ask me about when I’m going to win 86 or when I’m going to win 87. That’s a pretty cool place to be."

Shiffrin's smile during the medals ceremony was big and bright. One of her skis had "86 Victories" on it.

Shiffrin could surpass the Swedish legend still this weekend, with a slalom race Saturday. Of Shiffrin’s 86 World Cup wins, 52 are in slalom and 20 are in giant slalom.

Stenmark wasn't in Are -- he told The Associated Press last month he didn't want to be disrespectful of Sweden's skiers -- but Shiffrin said she sent him a message after the race.

"Maybe I get the 87th victory, maybe not. For me, the biggest dream is to be mentioned in the same sentence as you," Shiffrin said when asked what she'd said. "It’s pretty special who you are and who you were as a ski racer and what you achieved as a human. That’s been the most inspiring thing."

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How it happened

Shiffrin's first run all but assured this would be the day she'd catch Stenmark.

Using her traditional fast start and skiing with elegant aggression, Shiffrin took a 0.58-second lead into the second run. Only two skiers, Valerie Grenier and Fraziska Gritsch, were within a second of her, and neither were Shiffrin's biggest rivals in GS.

Gritsch skied out of her second run and Grenier made a big mistake on the upper part of the course to take herself out of contention. Knowing when she stepped to the start line for the second run that she'd wrapped up the season GS title, one of her main goals at the start of the year, Shiffrin said the only pressure she felt was to ski well.

"I tried to earn the victory the best I could," she said.

Shiffrin finished 0.64 ahead of Italy's Federica Brignone, who had the fastest second run. Sweden's Sara Hector was third.

A mark once thought untouchable

Stenmark's record was considered unbeatable when he set it in 1989. Now Shiffrin is not only on the verge of breaking it, most – Stenmark included -- are expecting she could have more than 100 wins by the time her career ends.

“I think she can win more than 100,” Stenmark told the AP last month. “It depends on how many years she continues. But for sure 100.”

What has made Shiffrin’s assault on the record books so impressive is both the speed and versatility with which she’s done it. She turns 28 on Monday; Stenmark was 32 when he won his last World Cup race while fellow American Lindsey Vonn, who previously held the mark for most wins by a woman, was 33.

And unlike Stenmark, whose wins were all in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom, Shiffrin’s wins have come in every discipline. In addition to slalom and GS, she has won five World Cup races in super-G, three in downhill, three in city events, two in parallel slalom and one in Alpine combined.

Shiffrin also won a silver in super-G at last month’s world championships, along with the gold in GS and a silver in slalom.

“I’m also impressed that she can ski good both in slalom and in super-G and downhill also,” Stenmark told the AP. “I could never have been so good in all disciplines.”

But Shiffrin said in January there’s no reason to try and compare her with Stenmark. Or with anyone else.

“That’s the whole beauty of sports and the magic of it is that you can dispute (who is the greatest) because people value different things,” Shiffrin said. “There will be plenty of people who don’t care what I achieve. Because they believe Ingemar is the greatest, they believe Marcel Hirscher is the greatest, they believe Lindsey is the greatest. So their legacies will always remain intact and they’ll always remain a part of ski racing history because of that.

“The greatest accomplishment is to be part of that conversation,” Shiffrin added. “I’m not so worried about nitpicking the numbers because I don’t think it really makes a difference.”

More to Shiffrin's season than record

The pursuit of Stenmark’s record has obscured what has been one of the most impressive seasons of Shiffrin’s career. Friday’s win was her 12th this season, matching the second-most of her career. She won a record 17 World Cup races in 2019.

By clinching the GS globe Friday, she now has 15 season titles in her career. She had already secured her fifth overall season title, leaving her one behind Annemarie Moser-Proell’s record for women, as well as the slalom globe.

Shiffrin also won three medals at the world championships last month, including a gold in giant slalom.

"My focus was much more on consistently top skiing. Maybe not always the top top, but always close. That was more important to me for this whole season," Shiffrin said.

"Now, to get 86 as well, it’s not easy to process."

Rebound after Beijing

All of this comes a year after the low point in Shiffrin’s career.

A two-time Olympic champion before her 23rd birthday, Shiffrin was expected to collect a haul of medals at last year's Beijing Games. Instead, she came home empty-handed, recording DNFs in three of her five individual races.

"I’m not going to fail bigger than that. Probably. And I survived it," Shiffrin said earlier this week. "I realized that pretty much everything is survivable. Everything that is going to happen in my ski career is fully survivable. No matter what it is, whether it’s great or it’s terrible, it’s just not the end of the world. There’s bigger things that happen in life. And I've experienced it."

She was referring to the sudden death of her father, Jeff, in February 2020. Shiffrin has been open about how unmoored she was by her grief, and she remains surrounded by memories of him. After getting her 85th win in Spindleruv Mlyn in January, she recalled her father being alongside her the first time she went there for what was her first World Cup race.

But she's finally able to see past her grief, and look forward to other things in her life. If that means more wins and records, great.

If not, that's fine, too.

"I want to ski well and I’m not done so of course I want to win another race," she said earlier this year. "But if it doesn’t happen, boo hoo. Cry about it, don’t. People are not going to care about it in like 30 minutes. Better just enjoy what I’m doing now and hopefully it’s meaningful to me and meaningful to somebody out there."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mikaela Shiffrin second to none, matches Ingemar Stenmark's win record