Mikaela Shiffrin sets record with 41st World Cup slalom win

LEVI, Finland — Coming off a record-breaking season that included 17 race wins, Mikaela Shiffrin didn’t need much time in the new campaign to reach yet another milestone.

In the season-opening race Saturday, the American set the all-time World Cup record for most slalom wins by any skier with victory No. 41 in the discipline.

Shiffrin topped the record set by Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark, who won 40 slaloms between 1974 and 1987. Shiffrin amassed her total in just seven years, having won her first race in December 2012.

“I don’t feel super emotional, I am just happy,” said Shiffrin, who usually refrains from focusing on records or statistics. “I am happy with my skiing for the first (slalom) race of the season.”

Shiffrin, the 2014 Olympic and four-time world champion, has held the women’s record since passing Marlies Raich’s tally of 35 slalom wins a year ago.

On Saturday, Shiffrin came from behind to defeat Petra Vlhova, runner-up to the three-time champion in the overall standings last season.

Vlhova, who won this race in 2017, led by 0.13 of a second after the opening run but skied out early in her final run and failed to finish, immediately after the American had posted the fastest run time by far.

“I had a solid first run and in the second run I was really attacking and fighting,” Shiffrin said. “I may have been a little bit lucky but we have no idea how (Vlhova) was going to finish.”

Even with Vlhova skiing out, the duo looks set to continue dominating the discipline, as all 21 World Cup slaloms since January 2017 have been won by either Shiffrin (17) or Vlhova (four).