Mikaela Shiffrin breaks Alpine skiing World Cup wins record

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Mikaela Shiffrin admitted she could have not cared at all about Saturday’s slalom. Her focus was Friday’s giant slalom and locking up the season title in that discipline.

Yet as she approached the start gate in the early afternoon in Åre, Sweden, a familiar uncomfortable nervousness fell over her heart.

Shiffrin focused, propelled herself down the course, and 50 precise seconds later, broke the Alpine skiing World Cup wins record with her 87th victory.

“I still had the same feeling in the start of this run that I have every race,” she told Austrian broadcaster ORF.

With wins on back-to-back days, Shiffrin tied and then passed Swede Ingemar Stenmark‘s record of 86 World Cup wins. Stenmark was a slalom and giant slalom star of the 1970s and ’80s and held the record since January 1982.

Shiffrin prevailed Saturday by 92 hundredths of a second over Swiss Wendy Holdener combining times from two runs. Shiffrin raced on the 12th anniversary of her World Cup debut at age 15.

ALPINE SKIING: Full Results | Broadcast Schedule

Her celebration was trademark subdued. She took deep breaths, crouched and buried her head in her knees. Moments later, Swede Anna Swenn Larsson, who finished third, congratulated her.

“You are f—ing insane,” Swenn Larsson said.

Later on the podium, Holdener joked that she has finished in second place “25 times because of you.” Holdener has actually finished runner-up to Shiffrin in 12 World Cup races, but she summed up the reputation of quite a few excellent technical skiers over the last decade.

Shiffrin then looked over to her mom and coach, Eileen, who was with two at first unrecognizable people bundled up in winter clothing. It took Shiffrin a moment to realize it was her sibling, brother Taylor, and his wife, Kristiana Oslund, who flew to Sweden to surprise her.

Only recently did Stenmark’s wins record become a target. Breaking the record is great, but not a dream come true. She said that having her family there made the day among the most memorable of her career.

“It’s a little bit funny how something I never thought about can become important because of who’s talking about it,” she told Swiss broadcaster SRF. “Everyone’s talking about it, and it becomes important for the sport, or for the people who are around me, so that it becomes important for me, too. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

Shiffrin is up to 13 World Cup wins this season, the most for any man or woman in one season since her record 17-victory campaign in 2018-19. She is expected to race three more times at next week’s World Cup Finals in Andorra, live on Peacock.

On Saturday, she became the third skier to eclipse 2,000 points in one World Cup season (Tina Maze scored 2,414 in 2013, and Shiffrin had 2,204 in 2019). Each race winner receives 100 points on a descending scale through one point for the 30th-place skier.

There is always another number to chase, and for Shiffrin, the obvious one is 100. She is expected to race at least through the next Winter Olympics in 2026, giving her at least three more World Cup seasons. She averaged eight wins per season since her first World Cup victory in December 2012.

Aside from that round number, these are the athletes with the most World Cup wins across Winter Olympic sports: Marit Bjørgen (114, cross-country skiing), Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann (98, speed skating) and Ole Einar Bjørndalen (95, biathlon).

Perhaps the most wild part of all this isn’t that Shiffrin broke the record, but the idea that she may be nowhere close to done winning.

“It’s pretty hard to describe and not over yet, which is even more ridiculous,” she said. “I shouldn’t feel pressure, but somehow I feel something in my heartbeat. That’s the anticipation that we want to feel in ski racing. I have it. It’s stronger than ever.”

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Kaori Sakamoto wins figure skating worlds; top American places fourth

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Kaori Sakamoto overcame a late error in her free skate to become the first Japanese figure skater to win back-to-back world titles and the oldest women’s world champion since 2014.

Sakamoto, 22, totaled 224.61 points on home ice in Saitama to prevail by 3.67 over Lee Hae-In of South Korea in the closest women’s finish at worlds since 2011.

Belgium’s Loena Hendrickx took bronze, edging 16-year-old American Isabeau Levito for a medal by 2.77 points.

Sakamoto is the oldest women’s singles world champion since Mao Asada (2014), who is now the only Japanese skater with more world titles than Sakamoto.

She appeared en route to an easier victory until singling a planned triple flip late in her free skate, which put the gold in doubt. She can be thankful for pulling off the second jump of that planned combination — a triple toe loop — and her 5.62-point lead from Wednesday’s short program.

“I feel so pathetic and thought, what was all that hard work I put into my training?” Sakamoto said of her mistake, according to the International Skating Union (ISU). “But I was able to refocus and do my best till the end.

“Because I have this feeling of regret at the biggest event of the season, I want to make sure I don’t have this feeling next season. So I want to practice even harder, and I want to make sure to do clean, perfect performances at every competition.”

Lee, who had the top free skate, became the second South Korean to win a world medal in any discipline after six-time medalist Yuna Kim.

Hendrickx followed her silver from last year, when she became the first Belgian women’s singles skater to win a world medal.

FIGURE SKATING WORLDS: Results | Broadcast Schedule

Levito, last year’s world junior champion, had a chance to become the youngest senior world medalist since 2014.

After a solid short program, she fell on her opening triple Lutz in the free skate and left points on the table by performing two jump combinations rather than three. The Lutz was planned to be the first half of a combination with a triple loop.

“I am severely disappointed because I’ve been nailing my Lutz-loop for a really long time, and this is the first time I’ve messed it up in a while, and of course it had to be when it actually counted,” Levito said, according to the ISU. “But I’m pretty happy with myself for just trying to move past it and focusing on making the most out of the rest of the program.”

Levito entered worlds ranked fourth in the field by best score this season. She matched the best finish for a U.S. woman in her senior global championships debut (Olympics and worlds) since Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan took silver and bronze at the 1991 Worlds. Sasha Cohen, to whom Levito is often compared, also placed fourth in her Olympic and world debuts in 2002.

“I feel very proud for myself and grateful for my coaching team for helping me get this far so far in my skating career, and I’m just very proud to be where I am,” Levito said on USA Network.

American Amber Glenn was 12th in her world debut. Two-time U.S. champion Bradie Tennell was 15th. They had been 10th and eighth, respectively, in the short program.

The U.S. qualified two women’s spots for next year’s worlds rather than the maximum three because the top two Americans’ results added up to more than 13 (Levito’s fourth plus Glenn’s 12th equaled 16). The U.S. was in position to qualify three spots after the short program.

Glenn said after the short program that she had a very difficult two weeks before worlds, including “out-of-nowhere accidents and coincidences that could have prevented me from being here,” and boot problems that affected her triple Axel. She attempted a triple Axel in the free skate, spinning out of an under-rotated, two-footed landing.

Tennell, who went 19 months between competitions due to foot and ankle injuries in 2021 and 2022, had several jumping errors in the free skate.

“This season has been like one thing after another,” said the 25-year-old Tennell, who plans to compete through the 2026 Winter Games. “I’m really excited to get back and work on some stuff for the new season.”

Earlier, Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates topped the rhythm dance, starting their bid for a first world title in their 12th season together and after three prior world silver or bronze medals.

“We skated as best we possibly could today,” Bates said, according to the ISU, after they tallied the world’s top score this season.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White are the lone U.S. ice dancers to win a world title, doing so in 2011 and 2013.

Worlds continue Friday night (U.S. time) with the free dance, followed Saturday morning with the men’s free skate, live on Peacock and USA Network.

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2023 World Figure Skating Championships results

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2023 World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama, Japan, top 10 and notable results …

Women
Gold: Kaori Sakamoto (JPN) — 224.61
Silver: Lee Hae-In (KOR) — 220.94
Bronze: Loena Hendrickx (BEL) — 210.42
4. Isabeau Levito (USA) — 207.65
5. Mai Mihara (JPN) — 205.70
6. Kim Chae-Yeon (KOR) — 203.51
7. Nicole Schott (GER) — 197.76
8. Kimmy Repond (SUI) — 194.09
9. Niina Petrokina (EST) — 193.49
10. Rinka Watanabe (JPN) — 192.81
12. Amber Glenn (USA) — 188.33
15. Bradie Tennell (USA) — 184.14

Men (Short Program)
1. Shoma Uno (JPN) — 104.63
2. Ilia Malinin (USA) — 100.38
3. Cha Jun-Hwan (KOR) — 99.64
4. Keegan Messing (CAN) — 98.75
5. Kevin Aymoz (FRA) — 95.56
6. Jason Brown (USA) — 94.17
7. Kazuki Tomono (JPN) — 92.68
8. Daniel Grassl (ITA) — 86.50
9. Lukas Britschgi (SUI) — 86.18
10. Vladimir Litvintsev (AZE) — 82.71
17. Sota Yamamoto (JPN) — 75.48
22. Andrew Torgashev (USA) — 71.41

FIGURE SKATING WORLDS: Broadcast Schedule

Pairs
Gold: Riku Miura/Ryuichi Kihara (JPN) — 222.16
Silver: Alexa Knierim/Brandon Frazier (USA) — 217.48
Bronze: Sara Conti/Niccolo Macii (ITA) — 208.08
4. Deanna Stellato-Dudek/Maxime Deschamps (CAN) — 199.97
5. Emily Chan/Spencer Howe (USA) — 194.73
6. Lia Pereira/Trennt Michaud (CAN) — 193.00
7. Maria Pavlova/Alexei Sviatchenko (HUN) — 190.67
8. Anastasia Golubova/Hektor Giotopoulos Moore (AUS) — 189.47
9. Annika Hocke/Robert Kunkel (GER) — 184.60
10. Alisa Efimova/Ruben Blommaert (GER) — 184.46
12. Ellie Kam/Danny O’Shea (USA) — 175.59

Ice Dance (Rhythm Dance)
1. Madison Chock/Evan Bates (USA) — 91.94
2. Charlene Guignard/Marco Fabbri (ITA) — 88.21
3. Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier (CAN) — 87.34
4. Lilah Fear/Lewis Gibson (GBR) — 86.56
5. Laurence Fournier Beaudry/Nikolaj Soerensen (CAN) — 85.59
6. Caroline Green/Michael Parsons (USA) — 78.74
7. Allison Reed/Saulius Ambrulevicius (LTU) — 78.70
8. Juulia Turkkila/Matthias Versluis (FIN) — 76.97
9. Natalie Taschlerova/Filip Taschler (CZE) — 76.56
10. Christina Carreira/Anthony Ponomarenko (USA) — 75.24
11. Kana Muramoto/Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) — 72.92

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