Mikaela Shiffrin Clinches Record-Setting Win at the Same Ski Area Where Her Career Began

Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it any better.

Mikaela Shiffrin stormed to her 108th World Cup victory, while clinching a record ninth slalom title on a slope and at a ski area where it all began for her.

It all unfolded at unheralded Špindlerův Mlýn in the Czech Krkonoše Mountains, on the Svaty Petr Black piste, where Shiffrin made her World Cup debut nearly 15 years ago, on March 11, 2011. Shiffrin was then a precocious 15-year-old—the GS race coming just two days prior to her 16th birthday.

“To be honest, it just feels amazing to be here—I felt like I was 15-years-old still,” Shiffrin said on Sunday, shortly after her 71st World Cup slalom triumph. “I just love skiing, and it’s the best feeling to be here.”

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“This race here for me is like realizing new beginnings and new chapters—something about this place is just special,” she said. Not only did Shiffrin kick off her World Cup career at Špindlerův Mlýn, but she also attained slalom wins in both 2019 and 2023, at a venue that is not a regular stop on tour.

The Crystal Globe securing victory was never in doubt as Shiffrin blazed to both the fastest first and second runs, winning her seventh slalom of the season by a staggering 1.67 seconds ahead of runner-up Camille Rast of Switzerland.

Following her World Cup debut in GS in 2011 at Špindlerův Mlýn, Shiffrin narrowly missed qualifying for the second run of slalom by a mere 0.05 seconds on the following day. It was a highly respectable performance considering her youth and lack of big event experience at that time.

This journalist was privileged to cover the then-unknown Shiffrin’s first two World Cup races in March 2011. After that memorable first race, Mikaela told me in the finish corral: “It’s like a dream really coming true here—I can’t explain it, but it’s something close to amazing. I’m just excited to be here.”

“There are so many cameras around you here, and people checking equipment. It’s just so intense and another step above for me. It keeps on getting better. It’s just a surreal experience.”

While it marked Shiffrin’s first experience on the large stage competing against the world’s premier female ski racers, the then three-time World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn was engaged in a tight battle with Germany’s Maria Riesch for the 2010-11 overall title.

“Lindsey is so nice. I was nervous about meeting her because she is one of my biggest idols,” Shiffrin said. “Sarah (Schleper), too, and really all the U.S. Ski Team girls.”

“They’ve all been great, really supportive, and they’ve told me that I could ask them anything,” she said. “I’m mostly trying just to not get in their way.”

Former U.S. Ski Team racer Sarah Schleper—who competed at four Olympics for the U.S. and two more representing Mexico—noticed Shiffrin’s talent straight out of the gate.

“She’s pretty focused, and it’s so cool to have somebody with so much talent come to our team,” Schleper said about Shiffrin at the time. “You love to see that. It’s making me inspired to ski another year.”

Fast forward to the present, and Shiffrin has been inspiring teammates, competitors, media, and fans ever since. On Sunday, approaching 15 years following that debut race weekend, the 30-year-old Colorado racer surpassed the record of eight slalom Crystal Globes that she previously shared with Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark.

“I wasn’t even thinking about the globe today, of course, I knew coming into this race that it could be possible, and now (after winning) I’m thinking that’s kind of crazy,” she said. “It’s been a very exciting day.”

Shiffrin will continue her stellar season—in which she has been nearly unbeatable in slalom, winning seven of eight races and also achieving her first World Cup GS podium in two years, at the Czech ski resort on Saturday—at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. She will be competing at her fourth Olympics, her first being Sochi 2014, at which she attained slalom gold at age 18.

“The Olympics is a totally different challenge—I’ve had great Olympics, I’ve had tough Olympics, so I try to go in with an open mind and good spirit, trusting my team,” she said.

“They’ve been amazing the whole season, and they’ll be there for me and all the U.S. athletes. We’re coming in with such strong athletes.”

Shiffrin is supremely in command of the overall World Cup standings, heading into the final two months of the season. She currently stands at 1,133 points, leading nearest challenger Rast by 170 and Germany’s Emma Aicher, in third, by 449.

What could be Shiffrin’s sixth overall World Cup title would equal the benchmark set by Austrian star Annemarie Moser-Pröll, who dominated ski racing in the 1970’s.

One could have never imagined that Shiffrin would exceed all expectations and rewrite the sport’s record books over an illustrious career, one that began inauspiciously on an unknown Czech mountain, one that isn’t quite as unknown anymore.

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