To experience a hundred in an unforgiving sport

Sport has depended and will depend on individuals, their qualities, talents and charisma. Whether it's individual or team sports, there has always been a fascination with those most successful and accomplished individuals. Their victories were celebrated as much as their defeats, because for every faithful fan and admirer, there was at least one who belittled their actions and results, usually because he was rooting for someone else.

Such people became heroes and immortal figures, such as every sport has.

Recently, it has become popular to compare heroes from the same or different time periods, even from different sports. Generations have argued, or grown up hearing arguments, about who he was better – Pele or Maradona; Ronaldo or Messi; Jordan or LeBron; Bird or Magic; Djokovic, Federer or Nadal.

These discussions have created many rivalries, and rivalries increase the popularity of any sport.

Skiing "didn't have that luck", because it has been "in the clutches" of a dominant and infallible girl from Colorado for more than ten years. By absolutely all parameters, results and achievements, Mikaela Shifrin is the most dominant person who got on her skis and started a fight with the stopwatch, her opponents, and herself.

Perfection in extreme sports

Skiing, compared to other professional sports, has somehow always been on the margins of interest and popularity. The nature of this sport is such that it is difficult to achieve perfection, because you have no right to a bad game, a few defeats or a lost set.

One wrong turn can cost you a podium, a position or a medal. It takes a special mental strength to recover from a split-second defeat, a series of bad runs or personal problems. It is necessary that you constantly try to be the best version of yourself, because there is no other way to win.

And victories can also be dangerous, because they can relax and lull you, which often happened to various athletes. But not Mikaeli Shiffrin.

Mikaela saw every success as just a temporary goal towards something bigger and higher. It's been that way since her first start in the World Cup in March 2011, in the Czech Spindleruv Mlyn, two days before her 16th birthday.

In December of the same year, the first podium arrived. In Lienac, Austria, Mikaela Šifrin finished the first race of the slalom in 12th place, and in the second race she was the fastest in the entire competition, which earned her third place and a place on the podium.

It was becoming clear that a new skiing star was being born, and the first victory was not long in coming. Again in slalom, but now in Ore, Sweden, at the end of December 2012, Mikaela Shifrin achieves her first victory in the World Cup, ahead of Frida Hansdotter and Tina Maze. The first of the current and record 99.

The perfect CV

Mikaela's successes just kept on coming. She became the youngest slalom champion at the Winter Olympics, then the youngest skier to win gold at the World Championships, and the first to win gold medals at five consecutive championships.

At the tender age of 19, she finished the season as the current World Cup, World Championship and Olympic slalom champion. It goes without saying that no one had managed to do something like that until then.

World Cup wins, perhaps the number one criterion in this sport, continued to roll in. Mikaela achieved 4, 5, 6, 5, 11, 12, 17, 6, 3, 5, 14 and 9 victories per season, which before this season totaled 97 triumphs.

Austria Alpine Skiing World Cup

The previous record was held by Ingemar Stenmark with 86 victories, each of which was achieved in technical disciplines (slalom and giant slalom). In the women's category, Lindsey Vonn held the top spot for a long time, with 82 victories, most of them in downhill.

Both figures seemed elusive, even for greats like Marcel Hirscher, Hermann Mayer or Wrennie Schneider. It just didn't seem that someone could be so dominant and so constant.

Mikaela Shifrin achieved her dominance thanks to her consistency and almost flawless technique. Missed gates happened to her very rarely, and falls even more rarely. In this way, she avoided disqualifications and injuries, diligently collecting points and victories. The fact that she has finished on the podium in 56.20 percent of her races so far in her career sounds impressive.

She achieved the highest number of triumphs in slalom, 62 out of 99, but at the same time she is one of only twelve skiers who managed to win in each of the disciplines (slalom, giant slalom, super giant slalom, downhill and alpine combination).

She won five Big Crystal Globes, as well as eight Small Globes in slalom. She particularly demonstrated her versatility in 2019, winning titles in slalom, giant slalom and super giant slalom. In the aforementioned season, she achieved as many as 17 triumphs, breaking another record for three victories.

Growing up, loneliness and tragedy

Mikaela is the child of Jeff, an anesthesiologist, and Eileen, a nurse, who met while working together at a hospital in the Boston area. Both were avid skiers, so they decided their first trip together would be a ski trip to Killington Mountain.

A few years later, in the small town of Vail in the state of Colorado, they had a daughter whom they named Mikaela. According to the stories of her parents, she was already skating on the frozen driveway at the age of two, and she got on skis and a track for the first time at the age of four.

Skiing is in the blood of this family, so it wasn't long before it was noticed that Mikaela had a huge potential and could be a professional sport. She grew up looking up to Bodi Miller and Janica Kostelić, and soon she moved to Europe and played in the World Cup.

She was accompanied by her mother Aileen, who was more or less everything to her - a coach, a mentor, a psychotherapist, and her best friend. In a sport dominated by Europeans, young Mikaela from the small town of Vail, Colorado, didn't have much company or social gatherings.

She almost never spent the holidays at home, because at that time the season would be in full swing. She would celebrate Christmas and New Year in numerous hotel rooms in France, Austria or Italy. Father Jeff would come whenever he could, carrying a video camera and capturing the rare moments when the family was together.

According to Mikaela, he was the support and good spirit of the family, who tried to connect members thousands of kilometers away. He took care of her finances and sponsorship contracts, obligations and small things, all so that Mikaela could focus solely on skiing.

In the midst of corona and isolation, a call came from Colorado that Jeff had an accident and was in critical condition. He fell from the roof he was repairing, and the first forecasts were not optimistic. Eileen and Mikaela boarded the first plane and managed to arrive in time to say goodbye to their beloved husband and father.

Mikaela, always smiling and in a good mood, used to victories and successes, for the first time found herself in a situation where she didn't know what she should do. Life showed her, in a brutal way, that not everything is about sports results. All those victories that eluded her by a fraction of a second, all the gates that she missed, which were not many, seemed small and insignificant to her then.

For the first time since sophomore year and skating in the driveway of the family home in Vail, Mikaela took a vacation.

Comebacks, injuries, wins and a message

A few months later, the then 24-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin found the strength to get back on her skis and enter the fight against the stopwatch. Her return was very emotional, as was the first victory after a family tragedy.

Again, the successes began to pile up, and then the records began to fall. First Lindsey Vonn's record, and then Ingemar Stenmark's. In other sports, these achievements would be much better presented to the public, even to those who are not interested in professional skiing. Still, everything here went somewhat under the radar, and Mikaela didn't want to make a big deal out of it either.

What was more important was that her recognizable smile returned to her face, and her impeccable technique, which adorned her throughout her career, brought her one step closer to her 100th victory. The popular Mickey enjoyed skiing again, and all that this sport brings. Fate wanted her to try to achieve the jubilee triumph in Killington, on the same mountain where her parents first traveled together more than three decades ago.

The two technical disciplines on the program made her a big favorite, as confirmed by her first run in the giant slalom, after which she was in the leading position. However, in the second run there was a crash that seemed scary.

Mikaela Shifrin has, for now, remained without her 100th victory, but the first news are positive and indicate that she could return to the track as early as the beginning of 2025. There is no doubt that she will come back in full glory and strength, because she also had difficult moments in her career. He will try to get to the hundredth victory right away, and then to another, and then another...

But it is not because of records, number of victories or - by the standards of other sports - paltry prize money. She learned the hard way that sports victories and defeats are not everything in life.

Finland Alpine Skiing World Cup

"We all think that we are OK when we win, but not OK when we lose. The real truth is that it doesn't affect me that way anymore. Whether I'm fine or not, it depends on the day to day, and it has almost nothing to do with how fast I went down the mountain.''

Ski fans want to see a smiling Mikaela celebrating her 100th victory with her arms raised on the finish line. And she will come, not because Mikaela Shiffrin has to prove herself to anyone, but because she is so much better than others.