Stenmark stoked about Shiffrin’s record: ‘She deserves it more than anyone else’
21 hours ago
Shiffrin broke Stenmark’s record which had stood for 34 years (Agence Zoom)
Mikaela Shiffrin chose the home of Swedish skiing to land her 87th and record-setting World Cup win. But the man whose mark she took and who once dominated his home slopes of Are, could not be happier.
“She deserves the record more than anyone else,” Ingemar Stenmark told the FIS.
“It’s just fun. She is a great skier and seems to be a very sympathetic person. So, I just think it’s nice for her.”
The two-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time world champion caused Alpine fever in the Scandinavian country in the 70s and 80s. He reached the top of a World Cup podium for the first time in 1974, took three consecutive overall World Cup titles between 1976 and 1978, and claimed his 86th World Cup victory in February 1989, a couple of weeks before retiring.
Stenmark’s record stood for 34 years. It could have fallen sooner: the USA’s Lindsey Vonn claimed her 82nd World Cup win in March 2018 before injuries forced her retirement at the age of 34.
Having seen Shiffrin in action, however, Stenmark knew his record did not have many years left.
“Already back then I said that Shiffrin will definitely get 100 wins. And I still think she will do that if she continues,” he said.
Shiffrin is the ultimate ski racer according to Stenmark (Agence Zoom)
“She is a complete skier. She has a good technique, but it’s not only that. She has physical strength, she has a strong head – those things combined make her so good.
“And she’s smart too. She doesn’t have to race at 100%’s speed. She knows that the others have to go beyond their ability (to beat her) and that they will make some mistakes.”
Shiffrin has often hailed Stenmark as an inspiration and someone who set the standards for today’s racers. The Alpine icon is humbled by her words.
“She seems to know who I am anyway,” he said.
“It’s a bit incomprehensible to me. It’s been so long since I quit.”
The Swedish technical specialist is hesitant to compare similarities between himself and the new record holder, but agrees it takes a different level of drive to get to 86 World Cup wins and beyond.
“To reach the top and be able to keep winning so many competitions, you have to try to find a new motivation, new goals. And that’s what’s hard when you’ve been around for a while and when you’ve won a lot,” Stenmark said.
“She is starting to get – and is already – good at super-G. And she can do downhill races well too, so perhaps that’s a new motivation for her.”
Shiffrin’s 87 World Cup victories are spread across slalom, giant slalom, downhill, super-G, combined, parallel, and city events. Stenmark’s 86 wins came in 46 giant slaloms and 40 slaloms.
He does not remember when in the early 1980s he passed Austria’s 62-time World Cup winner Annemarie Moser-Proell to take the record. But he does feel for Shiffrin who now has to find new goals to reach, new records to break – even though he is sure she will do that.
“It is difficult,” Stenmark said.
Stenmark is certain Shiffrin is far from finished (Agence Zoom)
“When I broke that record, it was a long time before I quit. It was nice when you broke the record. But after that, I never thought about it. And I don’t think she’ll care too much after beating it either. She just has to find some other motivations.”
Stenmark has stayed active beyond his professional skiing career. In 1996 and 2011 he won Swedish TV shows in which former athletes competed against each other, and in 2015 he took the title in Sweden’s version of celebrity TV dance show ‘Dancing with the Stars’.
And the passion for speed is still there. Over the past two years, the father-of-two has swapped ski slopes for car race courses, competing in the Porsche Sprint Challenge Scandinavia.
Stenmark said his motivation “ran out a bit” after his gold medals in slalom and giant slalom at the Lake Placid 1980 Olympic Winter Games. Yet he stayed in the sport for almost another decade as he kept smashing records.
“I can’t say I was aiming to break records, I just tried to win race after race,” he said.
“The world championships and the Olympics were perhaps the motivation for me. In the last few years, the motivation was to be with my friends in the Swedish national team. It was a nice group of people.”
Stenmark believes Shiffrin has the potential and drive to keep collecting World Cup wins in the years ahead, especially since her partner, Norwegian Alpine ace Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, 30, is also on the tour.
“After all, she has a boyfriend – Kilde – who is also doing it, so that makes it easier,” Stenmark said.
“They can train together in the summer and motivate each other.”
‘Unbelievable’ Shiffrin re-writes record books to become the greatest
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21 hours ago
Mikaela Shiffrin has more World Cup titles than anyone in the history of the sport (Agence Zoom)
It is official, Mikaela Shiffrin is the greatest Alpine skier of all time.
She is also undoubtedly one of the most dominant athletes in sport right now.
At the age of just 27 and 12 years to the day after her first Audi FIS World Cup race, the American stormed to her 87th victory. In a further piece of perfect symmetry, the win that took her past the great Ingemar Stenmark’s long-standing mark, came in the home of Swedish skiing, Are, where she won her first ever World Cup race back in 2012.
She did it in magnificent style too, dominating both slalom runs to take her second win in two days, this one by a vast margin of 0.92 seconds. The two skiers to get closest to the new record holder had just one word for Shiffrin’s quite remarkable career to date.
“Crazy,” laughed both second place Wendy Holdener and hometown hero Anna Swenn Larsson.
Stenmark himself recently gave the FIS his assessment of why Shiffrin is in a class of her own.
“She is a complete skier. She has a good technique, but it’s not only that. She has physical strength, she has a strong head – those things combined make her so good,” said the Swede who won his 86th race at the age of 32, back in 1989.
“And she’s smart too. She doesn’t have to race at 100% speed. She knows that the others have to go beyond their ability (to beat her) and that they will make some mistakes.”
Mistakes from her rivals or not, Shiffrin looked utterly untouchable in Are. Smooth and confident in the morning’s first run, she defied the nerves she claims to always feel in the second, to get into her free-flowing style almost from the gate.
After crossing the line, she froze seemingly in disbelief for a moment, before rocking on her haunches as the enormity of what she has achieved hit. The surprise presence in the finish area of her brother and his wife, alongside her mother, prompted the floodgates to open.
“Those are the moments that make this,” Shiffrin said, the tears still in her eyes. “I can’t put a name with the numbers, I’ve said this the whole time, I don’t know how to define that but when you have these special moments like being on the podium with Paula Moltzan in Semmering, seeing my brother and Christie and my mum in the finish today, that’s what makes it memorable.
“What an unbelievable day.
“I am so proud of the skiing I did both runs today. I am so proud of the team this whole season, every step of the way being strong and focused and positive and having the right goals and helping me manage my own focus and the distractions as well, it’s been incredible.”
Shiffrin could hardly believe what she has already achieved (Agence Zoom)
Incredible is absolutely the right word. Even amongst her extraordinary efforts so far, this season stands out. Shiffrin has won six out of the 10 World Cup slalom races so far, plus six out of the nine giant slaloms. That means more than 63% of the time she has lined up for a technical World Cup race this season, she has won.
She has already secured the overall, the slalom and the giant slalom season titles and her efforts today take her to 53 World Cup slalom wins, already seven more than any other skier has managed in any single discipline.
The sport is lucky to have her and knows it.
“Congratulations on one of the greatest achievements in the history of sports, Mikaela,” FIS President Johan Eliasch said. “This was a record which was thought to be almost unbreakable. You are an inspiration for generations to come.”
She is an inspiration for the current generation too. Swenn Larsson, whose third place was a fourth podium in what has been a great season, is just thankful to be competing in the same era as Shiffrin.
“She is such a great athlete and person. She is unbelievable and it’s really cool to race against her,” said the Swede who could see her home from the top of the slalom run. “I hope to beat her one more time or two more times before I’m done, that’s my goal.”
