Shiffrin earns historic 100th World Cup race win

SESTRIERE, Italy -- Mikaela Shiffrin is 100% the best in skiing's World Cup history book.

Shiffrin's record-extending 100th career World Cup race win Sunday fulfilled a quest put on hold by a serious crash in November.

Back to racing in her favored slalom event, Shiffrin kept and added to her first-run lead to finish 0.61 seconds ahead of Zrinka Ljutic. Shiffrin's U.S. teammate Paula Moltzan was third.

Shiffrin also tied a World Cup record for men and women, as her 155th career top-3 finish matched Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark.

Shiffrin crossed the finish line and took a long look at the scoreboard showing her victory. She then looked again over her left shoulder with an expression of amazement.

She lay down on the snow with her right hand to her helmet and then was helped to her feet by Moltzan, who hugged her.

Shiffrin cried at first when she was asked in a post-race interview what it meant after all she had been through in the past few months.

"Everyone had been so nice and so supportive. I am so grateful, thank you," she said.

Shiffrin's 99th win was earned exactly three months ago in a slalom at Gurgl, Austria.

No. 100 had been within clear sight one week later when Shiffrin crashed out of a giant slalom at Killington, Vermont, while racing fast as the first-run leader.

The injuries she suffered in a tumbling fall -- severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound -- sidelined her for several weeks and left "PTSD-like" anxiety about racing giant slalom.

In two giant slaloms at Sestriere, she placed 25th on Friday and on Saturday finished outside the top-30 fastest racers in the first run for the first time since 2012.

Shiffrin and Stenmark are the two greatest record setters in the World Cup's 58-year history.

His record of 86 World Cup wins was broken by Shiffrin in March 2023, almost 34 years after his last win. Stenmark's 86th win -- a giant slalom at Aspen, Colorado, in February 1989 -- also was his 155th and last podium result.