Only three skiers in the 57-year history of the FIS World Cup have won over 100 ski races. Amélie Wenger-Reymond, a telemark skier from Switzerland, tops the chart with an astounding 164 wins to her name. Behind her, Marit Bjørgen, a cross-country skier from Norway, has 114, and then Conny Kissling, a freestyle skier also from Switzerland, has 106.
Following her 99th World Cup victory in Gurgl, Austria, this past weekend, Mikaela Shiffrin has a chance to join their ranks in the FIS World Cup triple-digit winners club. Should she make it, she will be the first alpine skier — man or woman — to have ever reached that centennial milestone.
The 29-year-old Vail, Colo., native is arguably the biggest star in competitive ski racing today. She has won two gold Olympic medals in her career and, among the list of Individual World Cup Victories, she is the only athlete in the top five that is still actively competing.
For perspective, the second-highest number of FIS World Cup alpine skiing victories belongs to Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark, who won 86 World Cup races before retiring in 1989. The only other actively competing alpine skier who is even close is Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland, with 45 wins.
This weekend, Shiffrin has a chance to make history.
Mikaela Shiffrin: Breaking the 100 World Cup Win Milestone
On Saturday, Nov. 16, Shiffrin raced in Gurgl, Austria, taking first place in slalom and scoring her 99th World Cup victory. It was the second consecutive slalom race win for the American ski racer.
“I was really nervous on the top [for the second run],” Shiffrin told NBC Sports. “I could hear all the women going down, and their teams were cheering, and that always means they had a really good run. It was getting sort of darker, and I was like, sh*t, I don’t think it’s happening today.”
Then, it did. Shiffrin beat Albanian Lara Colturi by 55/100th of a second, combining times from two separate runs. That win set her up to break number 100 in front of a U.S. crowd at the Stifel Killington Cup race in Vermont next weekend.
Following the Stifel Killington Cup, Shiffrin will compete at Beaver Creek on Dec. 14-15 in the Stifel Birds of Prey Cup. This is the first year that World Cup women’s races will be held on Beaver Creek’s infamously steep Birds of Prey course.
Shiffrin will be on true home territory, having grown up just minutes away from that resort. Female racers have already publicly expressed how excited they are to finally “send it” down Birds of Prey.
You can watch the races live on Peacock; NBC will also play replays on its broadcast network.
