Records Tumble As World's Best Ski Racers Close in on All Time World Cup Wins Record

It has been a remarkable month, and particularly the past week, in the Alpine Skiing World Cup as the planet’s best ski racers prepare for their brief Christmas break ahead of 2019 and the World Championships in Are, Sweden in less than two months’ time.

Among the records broken in recent days:

America’s Mikaela Shiffrin (pictured top) has become the youngest person to notch up 50 World cup wins, still aged just 23. She’s one of only eight skiers to get to 50 World Cup wins. Her win in the slalom at Courchevel on Saturday also equalling the most slalom wins by any woman to date: 35.

Austria’s Marchel Hirscher (29), pictured above, already a record holder for the most consecutive Overall World Cup titles (seven) recorded his 63^rd win to become the most successful Austrian ski racer of all time and move up to third place in the ‘All-time World Cup wins’ table. With his slalom win on home soil at Saalbach he overtook the long-standing Austrian winners record held for almost 40 years by Annemarie Moser-Proell, who had 62 wins when she retired in 1980.

Mikaela Shiffrin also became only the seventh person in history to record World Cup wins in all five Alpine disciplines (Downhill, Super G, Giant Slalom, Slalom and Combined).

All the achievements of Shiffrin and Hirscher come as the third contender to take over Ingemar Stenmark’s 30 year old record of 86 wins, Lindsey Vonn (USA) has been laid up by an injury.

Vonn (34), who is just four wins away from equalling and five wins away from overtaking Stenmark (pictured above in 2011), has said doing so is not a priority for her as she unofficially announced 2019 is going to be her final year of racing (probably).  Vonn had originally said this 18-19 World cup season would be her last, but having missed the Lake Louise races at the start of the season due to injury, she has now said she’ll race at Lake Louise at the start of the 19-20 season as it’s her favourite meeting and she wants to finish her career “having fun” on a high.

Meanwhile Stenmark himself has announced he’ll be racing again in 2019.  He’s to compete in a charity fundraising ‘masters’ race at the World championships in his home nation in February.