Mikaela Shiffrin breaks Ingemar Stenmark’s World Cup ski record

“There is [been] talked so much about the record and whether it happens today or tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” Shiffrin, 27, said last week. “… I try to take it step by step every day, to really push, to ski properly.”

Shiffrin, whose first World Cup victory came in December 2012 in Are, went into this season with 74 World Cup victories. Last weekend she won her fifth overall World Cup title, which goes to the skier with the most points each year over the course of the season.

“At the start of the season I didn’t think I would get close to that number of 86 [this year]so my goal was the total ball,” she said at the time.

Stenmark, 66, has described Shiffrin as a “much better” skier than he was.

“You can’t compare,” he recently told the Associated Press. “She has everything. She has good physical strength, she has good technique, a strong head. I think it’s the combination of everything that makes them so good. And I’m also impressed that she’s good at slalom, super-G and downhill as well. I could never have been so good in all disciplines.”

All of Stenmark’s 86 victories were slalom (40) or giant slalom (46); Shiffrin’s 87 victories were in slalom (53), giant slalom (20) or parallel (five), super-G (five), downhill (three), and combination (one).

Stenmark said he plans to watch the Are competition from his home outside of Stockholm rather than attend in person.

“I’ll be watching on TV of course,” Stenmark said, adding, “It would be a bit strange for me to go to Are to celebrate Shiffrin when we have the Swedish girls too. If it had been somewhere else it would have been easier.”