Johan Clarey, oldest Olympic Alpine skiing medalist, retires

Now that Mikaela Shiffrin broke the Alpine skiing World Cup career wins record, plus clinched season titles in the overall, giant slalom and slalom, there may just be one significant, outstanding question for her going into this week’s World Cup Finals.

Is it her best World Cup season ever?

At the World Cup Finals in Andorra, which start with downhills Wednesday, Shiffrin finishes her season with three races: Thursday’s super-G, Saturday’s slalom and Sunday’s giant slalom. All of the women’s races, plus Friday’s mixed-gender team parallel event, air live on Peacock.

“In the beginning of the season, if I could scrape by with five [wins] and the overall [season title], that would be, like, out of this world,” Shiffrin said after Saturday’s record-breaking win, her 13th race victory this season. “So I don’t really know what to say about this season.”

2023 Alpine Skiing World Cup Finals Broadcast Schedule

*Delayed broadcast.

The best measure of an Alpine skier’s yearly success is their World Cup points. For each race, a winner receives 100 points on a descending scale through 30th place, which receives one point. At World Cup Finals, where fields are smaller than 30, only the top 15 score points.

Shiffrin has 2,028 points this season, nearly double second-place Petra Vlhova of Slovakia, which allowed her to clinch the overall title, the biggest annual prize in ski racing, two weeks before World Cup Finals.

In 2018-19, Shiffrin’s best season, she scored 2,204 points, the second-highest total in history behind Tina Maze‘s 2,414 from 2012-13. Shiffrin can surpass 2,204 with two wins in three starts this week, or other combinations of strong finishes.

Shiffrin has also said that, at times this season, she has produced the best skiing of her career.

But comparing 2023 to 2019 is not apples to apples. The more one dissects, a stronger case can be made for 2018-19.

In 2018-19, Shiffrin earned 17 World Cup wins, the most by any male or female Alpine skier in one season. She has 13 wins so far this season, so the most that she can finish with is 16.

In 2018-19, there were 35 races. This season, there will be 38, assuming none of the World Cup Finals events get canceled due to weather, meaning more opportunities to accumulate wins and points.

She has 28 starts this season, her most ever. If she wins all three races this week, she will have averaged 75 points per start this season. She had 26 starts in 2018-19, when she averaged nearly 85 points per start.

Shiffrin has talked about the fatigue she felt after 2018-19.

She has been busier this season, but her life changed significantly in the four years in between.

“I guess maybe I’m equally as tired,” as in 2019, she said. “Having done that season, maybe I feel like my capacity for fatigue is higher, but then at the same time. … What I’ve experienced over the last couple years, my understanding of fatigue, it’s completely different. I said I was tired in the 2018-19 season, but that was before I ever experienced not sleeping for three weeks straight [after my father’s death in February 2020].”

In at least one way, she sees a similarity between the two seasons.

“For our team, despite anything that happens, to be able to remain focused on the skiing and sort of the process of still going out every day in training and freeskiing and doing the drills and doing all the things that allow me to possibly win races,” she said. “It’s not 17 [wins], but [13] is a number that I never thought I could get in a single season again in my career.”

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