November, The Vermont snow, Mikaela Shiffrin and the wait for her 100th world cup victory. The wait was only prolonged as the skiing legend hit the snow and crashed into one of the gates on the track, leaving a puncture wound in her abdomen; tore her oblique muscle and required surgery. Recovery wasn’t easy for her—she had to go under a surgeon and had to leave so many races she could have won, and on top of that, her post-return PTSD, and worse, the injury haunted her life like her father’s death.

The G.O.A.T., in an interview with NBC Sports, opened up about the parallels of her injury and her father’s death. She said, “It has been feeling very similar, to be honest, to this kind of mental fog that I had the year after my dad passed (in 2020).” Her father, Jeff Shiffrin, died on February 2nd, 2020, after sustaining injuries from an accident, and the 100-time world cup winner did not take it easy.

The Vermont native took a break from skiing to grieve, and it was so bad that, in her mother’s very own words, she was “she couldn’t even get out of bed. She was so devastated. She couldn’t stop crying.” Perhaps it’s being bedridden and the break from skiing that Shiffrin draws parallel with and that has been helping her.

She continued in the interview, “So communicating that, talking with my psychologist, talking with teammates, letting anybody and everybody kind of give me advice, and the main thing that everyone said is the only way to move through this is to get the exposure and to keep doing it (ski racing).” Maybe these were the pieces of advice that brought her back.

The Olympic gold medalist made her return to the snow in the World Cup slalom event in Courchevel on 31st January. Though in that event she finished 10th with a time of 1:47.10 across her two runs, the queen of the snows has cemented herself in the Mount Rushmore of skiing with her 100th, but how does she feel about it?

Mikaela Shiffrin Reflects on the 100th

“I honestly did not anticipate 100 was going to happen this season,” said the skier who had her 100th win in the 2025 season in the same interview. The 29-year-old on Feb. 23 marked her 100th World Cup victory in Sestriere, Italy, as she went down the snow in her favorite slalom event. Ever since then, she has been reflecting on the win.

She said in the NBC interview, “There’s so much more meaning to this one than a number or a record. I wouldn’t say it’s a relief, honestly. I would say it’s almost a surprise after everything that’s happened in the last months.” The injury, the puncture wound, the PTSD—of course a lot happened in previous months, Mikaela, but so did the 100th.

It is needless to say that if there were ever a Mount Rushmore of skiing, Mikaela would be the first face on the mountain. With her 100th win, she is the only skier to take her wins to a triple number in the entirety of skiing. Her record not only makes her the greatest in the women’s division but also the men’s as well. She is well past Lindsey Vonn’s record of 82 World Cup wins.

And with her 87th, Mikaela went past arguably one of the greatest skiers of all time, Ingemar Stenmark, a long time ago and she still has a little left in her. The soon-to-be 30-year-old is going to come for her 4th Olympic medal in the Milano-Cortina 2026, but what awaits her before that is a World Cup giant slalom and slalom in Åre, Sweden, next weekend. What do you think? How fast is the number 1 going to be?