After enduring a disappointing Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, Mikaela Shiffrin returned to form to rewrite history.
In the 2022/23 season, the American star broke Lindsey Vonn's women's World Cup wins record of 82 before eclipsing Ingemar Stenmark's overall mark of 86 which had stood for 34 years.
Her tally of 53 World Cup slalom race triumphs is the most by a skier in a single discipline, 13 clear of Stenmark.
She has every chance of realising Stenmark's prediction that she will record at least 100 World Cup race victories.
Shiffrin went into Beijing 2022 fully expected to add to her tally of two golds and a silver from two previous Olympic Winter Games. To say things did not go to plan is an understatement.
Having had just two DNFs in the previous four years, the American superstar had three at the Yanqing National Alpine Ski Centre in China. She fell just seven gates into the defence of her giant slalom title from PyeongChang, and then made a similar mistake four gates into the slalom.
After receiving public support from her boyfriend, Norwegian skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, and the likes of Vonn and USA gymnast Simone Biles following abuse on social media, Shiffrin returned to action with a creditable ninth in Super G.
And after her 18th in downhill, the combined event looked hers for the taking. Using skis borrowed from Sofia Goggia, she was fifth after the downhill run with inferior slalom skiers ahead of her. But her frustrations continued as, after 10 gates, she fell again to complete her individual campaign without a medal.
Determined to take something from the Games, Shiffrin lined up for the mixed team parallel event but won just one of four races with USA eventually losing the small final for bronze against Norway.
She said, "Day after day, I just kept making the decision that I wanted to keep going, keep trying. It's always been a dream of mine to compete in every event at the Olympic Games. And I don't know, was it worth competing in every event?
"I mean, I have Olympic medals. Personally, I would say it was worth it, but it feels certainly like... I feel like a joke, I still do. You can fail and not be a failure, and I have won in my career and I'm going to win again."
Shiffrin's rise to the top
Very much a teenage prodigy, Shiffrin made a World Cup podium for the first time in December 2011 - in the Spindleruv Mlyn giant slalom - aged 16.
She had her first World Cup win 12 months later in the Are night slalom before claiming her first world title six weeks later at Schladming while still 17.
Her slalom success at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, coming a year after that world title triumph, was widely expected. But she surprised herself with fifth in giant slalom having thought, "My level at that point wasn’t good enough to deserve an Olympic medal."
Four years later at PyeongChang 2018, her hopes of racing in all the individual events were dashed by high winds and schedule changes.
She did manage to win the giant slalom and reflected, "Winning the gold in GS in PyeongChang is probably always going to be one of my favourite moments of my career. Just because everything that it symbolises is everything that I hoped for."
The Vail native won 17 of 26 World Cup races in the 2018/19 season and collected overall, slalom, giant slalom, and Super G crystal globes – the first time any skier has achieved the feat. She also claimed slalom and Super-G gold at the 2019 World Championships for good measure.
Her dominance, particularly in slalom, was threatened by Petra Vlhova before Shiffrin she took time off the tour following the sudden death of her father, Jeff, in February 2020.
It took time for her to reach top form again, although she did win four medals at the 2021 World Championships - held at Cortina which will host alpine skiing at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games - including combined gold.
In 2022, she claimed her fourth overall World Cup title but won just five races during the season and failed to add to her tally of small Crystal Globes before returning to her best with 14 victories in the 2022/23 campaign.
