After capping her record-breaking season with a career win of 88, Mikaela Shiffrin kept getting asked one question — and she couldn’t really answer it.
What’s next?
“What do you think next? How many wins?” asked Johan Eliasch, President of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, after presenting Shiffrin with her fifth large crystal globe, the award for winning the overall World Cup title.
“I don’t know how many,” Shiffrin replied. “Sometimes a part of me feels like this is always my last win. I hope not, I keep striving for more.”
A week after beating Swede great Ingemar Stenmark’s record, the American extended the all-time record for most career wins to 88 by winning the final race of the season, a giant slalom at Sunday’s World Cup finals.
Her 21st career win in the discipline marked another milestone, as it saw Shiffrin pass Swiss skier Vreni Schneider, who had 20 World Cup GS wins between the mid-’80s and mid-’90s. The American has won seven of the last eight events and clinched the GS World Championship title last month.
The overall record between men and women is held by Stenmark, who won 46 giant slaloms in the 1970s and 80s.
The “What’s next?” question also came from her friend and World Cup Downhill Champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who was conducting a trackside interview after the race.
“I don’t know, you guys tell me. Just keep going,” said Shiffrin, who also secured the slalom and GS titles that season.
After Kilde asked her about improvement plans for next season, Shiffrin quipped, “We can discuss that privately later.”
Shiffrin also set a personal best of 2,206 World Cup points from 31 starts this season, two points more than her tally from 2018-19 when she competed in 26 races.
Only one skier accumulated more points in a single season: Slovenian grandmaster Tina Maze finished her 2012-13 season with 2,414 points.
Shiffrin later posed for photos with overall men’s winner Marco Odermatt, who set the men’s record with 2,042 points. It is the first World Cup season in which both the women’s and men’s overall winners finish with more than 2,000 points.
Sunday’s result also marked Shiffrin’s record-breaking 138th World Cup podium of her career, putting her ahead of former teammate Lindsey Vonn’s 137 mark.
But for Shiffrin, her personal favorite record came nine years ago.
“Honestly, I think I’m probably the youngest slalom Olympic champion. That was really the only record I ever really wanted, how really shot,” said Shiffrin, who was 18 when she won her first Olympic gold at the 2014 Sochi games.
“It’s been quite a while and I’m still motivated today, I still had that nervous feeling up there. I was so nervous at first… because you want to do well. And it’s not about records, you just want to do well.”
In glorious sunshine on the Avet track, Shiffrin maintained her lead from heat one by 0.06s over Thea Louise Stjernesund. The Norwegian took her first podium of her career.
Canadian skier Valerie Grenier was third, 0.20 seconds behind Shiffrin.
Three of the top seven racers didn’t finish their first runs as Petra Vlhova, who won Saturday’s slalom, Federica Brignone and Olympic champion Sara Hector all missed a goal.
Two-time former world champion Tessa Worley finished 11th in what she said was the last race of her career. The French GS specialist has won 16 races and three titles this season, most recently last year.
