Mikaela Shiffrin paused for a moment, grabbed her blue helmet and then accepted the congratulations of her competitors for a historic achievement: The alpine star from the USA equalled the legendary record of 86 World Cup victories of the Swede Ingemar Stenmark. The 27-year-old won the giant slalom on Friday in Are, Sweden, and was cheered on by the spectators in the finish area. "This is a spectacular day," she said afterwards. Already this Saturday (10.30 a.m. and 13.30 p.m. on ZDF and Eurosport) Shiffrin can become the sole record holder with a victory in the slalom.

The two-time Olympic champion had already laid the foundation for the success with the fastest first run, with which she also secured the Small Crystal Globe for the Giant Slalom classification after the overall and the Slalom World Cup. After two races, Shiffrin was 0.64 seconds ahead of Federica Brignone of Italy. Third was the Swede Sara Hector (+0.92). The only German starter, Lena Dürr from Germering, had missed the second run in 32nd place of the first race.

"She's much better than I was"

Shiffrin's famous record-breaking season continues uninterrupted. First, the exceptional athlete broke the record of her former opponent and compatriot Lindsey Vonn and became the first woman to win 83 World Cups. Then, with her 14th World Championship medal, she became the most successful ski racer at the World Championships in the post-war period. So now it's Stenmark's turn.

Even before Shiffrin's victory in Are, the Swedish slalom legend had raved about the alpine high-flyer. "She's much better than I was. She has good physical strength, she has a good technique, a strong head. And I'm also impressed that she runs so well in the slalom as well as in the super-G and downhill. I could never have been so strong in all these disciplines," Stenmark praised the Colorado woman.

In the 1970s and 80s, Stenmark achieved all 86 victories in the technical disciplines of slalom (40) and giant slalom (46). Before her success in Are, Shiffrin was also at the top of the slalom (52), but also won the giant slalom (20) or parallel (5), the super-G (5) and downhill (3) as well as the combined (1).

And what's next? "I think she can win more than 100 (races)," said Stenmark. Shiffrin, on the other hand, doesn't like to talk about records. "Maybe we can finally stop. I only know because you always draw my attention to it," said the American. But as long as the magical winter sports limits of former biathlete Ole Einar Björndalen (95 individual World Cup victories) or cross-country skier Marit Björgen (114) are not reached, Shiffrin will continue to have to face the record questions.