ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
In Alpine skiing, nobody wins like Mikaela Shiffrin. Her 99th World Cup win puts her ahead of any other Alpine skier - man or woman. And she is not done. She's going for her hundredth World Cup win this weekend on her home slopes in Killington, Vermont. Here to talk about that is Eric Willemsen. He's a journalist based in Austria who has covered Mikaela Shiffrin throughout her career, including for The Associated Press. Good morning, Eric.
ERIC WILLEMSEN: Good morning, Rob. Thanks for having me.
SCHMITZ: Thanks for being here. How likely is it that Mikaela Shiffrin gets her 100th World Cup win this weekend?
WILLEMSEN: Well, if statistics in ski racing are something to go by, then the likeliness is very high that she will land her 100th victory this weekend. We have a giant slalom on Saturday coming up in Killington, followed by a slalom on Sunday. And if you look at the statistics, Mikaela is, of course, the world record holder in slalom victories - 62 in her career, and six of them have come in Killington over the past seven years. So she's definitely a strong favorite to land that victory in that event. On Saturday, the giant slalom, she's never won that one in Killington. But also in that discipline, she's the world record holder with 22 victories overall, so we wouldn't be too surprised if she already gets that victory then. But then it is Alpine skiing - just a sport that's always decided by the smallest of margins. So just a little mistake, a little misjudgment can cost you the victory. So Mikaela Shiffrin will take nothing for granted.
SCHMITZ: That's right. You know, you've followed her from the start of her career, and you've interviewed her multiple times. What do you think makes her so dominant?
WILLEMSEN: Yeah, that's right. I've been an Associated Press sports writer and following Alpine skiing since 2006. So I've been lucky enough to follow Mikaela's career since she started racing on the World Cup in 2011. I think what makes her good is really a combination of factors. Of course, she has loads of talent that she has got from a young age. She's definitely the most naturally gifted ski racer the sport has ever seen. But it's more to that - she's a very dedicated racer who puts in more hard work on and off the slopes, I think, than anyone else in ski racing. And add to that, she has the perfect environment. Both her parents, who are very advanced skiers - and especially her mother, who's a world-class ski coach who has followed her throughout her career, and she's still on the team coaching Mikaela. So she has a very familiar and good environment to develop her skills over the years. And finally, of course, it's her mentality that not only brings her to the top of this sport but has kept her there for many years now. She's a very resilient racer, very resilient and down-to-earth person who can overcome times when things are not going so well and always rise - knows how to rise from that again to go back on the top.
SCHMITZ: So she has 99 World Cup wins. Is anyone even close to that?
WILLEMSEN: No. That's a very simple answer. No.
SCHMITZ: Wow.
WILLEMSEN: She actually broke the overall record of 86 World Cup wins 1 1/2 year ago, and that was a record that stood for almost 40 years. It was set by a...
SCHMITZ: Gosh.
WILLEMSEN: ...Swedish great, Inegmar Stenmark. And when he finished his career in the 1980s on '86, people back then said, well, that's a record probably never to be broken in this sport again. Now Mikaela has done that, and not just by a few wins, but she's already on 99. And mind you, she's only 29. She turns 30 next March. So if she feels like it, she has many more years to come to even build on this.
SCHMITZ: That is Eric Willemsen. He's a journalist based in Austria who covers sports for The Associated Press. Thanks, Eric.
WILLEMSEN: Thank you.
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