She thought she had done enough. Mikaela Shiffrin believed her ninth slalom win of the season had sealed the overall title, but there was Emma Aicher yet again. She cut Shiffrin’s lead to just 85 points, making the final race a do-or-die. And when all of it was finally over, the weight of it hit Shiffrin all at once as she burst into tears.

When race officials confirmed Shiffrin had finally won her sixth FIS World Cup overall title, all Shiffrin could do was break down in tears as her fiancé Aleksander Aamodt Kilde comforted her. The 31-year-old had finally equaled Annemarie Moser-Pröll’s iconic record from the 1970s, and all of it had a direct impact on her.

“It’s quite emotional,” Shiffrin said to FIS, as per Olympics.com. “This thing sums up a whole season of work and fighting with the whole team. I have to say to Emma that her skiing has been just outstanding, and today, it was so cool to watch her, especially on the first run.”

“I’m really grateful to be in this position now. It’s really a big emotion, but I’m so grateful for the fight.”

The win marked Mikaela Shiffrin’s sixth title in ten years, after she won three straight from 2017 to 2019 and then two back-to-back in 2022 and 2023. The legendary Moser-Pröll, on the other hand, won five consecutive titles from 1971 to 1975 before adding a sixth in 1979 to take the top spot before Shiffrin turned up.

Mikaela Shiffrin had, after all, finished seventeenth after her first run in the Giant Slalom at Hafjell. It offered Emma Aicher some hope, as she needed the American to finish below 15th and win the race to win the overall crown. But that was before the Shiffrin’s second run. She put everything into that and performed like a woman possessed to finish first with sixteen skiers left. 

And then, when the next two starters couldn’t match that time, it sealed the win. That’s because it meant Mikaela Shiffrin wouldn’t finish lower than 11th, while Aicher eventually finished 12th.

The two women jointly occupy the top spot, followed by Lindsey Vonn (4), Petra Kronberger (3), Vreni Schneider (3), and Janica Kostelic (3). But Mikaela Shiffrin had to deliver some of the best results of her career and break multiple records along the way to seal the title.

Mikaela Shiffrin smashes records en route to overall World Cup crown

That includes winning nine out of ten slalom races, a feat that had never been done before, and creating a record for most wins and titles in a single discipline. Not only that, she ended up finishing second in the one slalom race she didn’t win gold, to emphasise her dominance in the discipline.

The 31-year-old also had the most wins in the season (17) and added to her tally of World Cup wins by taking it to 110, a feat no other skier can replicate. As if that wasn’t enough, Mikaela Shiffrin also won the Olympic gold in the slalom, although she did finish 11th in the Giant Slalom. But the American’s sixth title was far from easy, as Emma Aicher put up an incredible fight until the final race of the season.

While Shiffrin concentrated on her specialized disciplines, Aicher competed in every event, finishing second in the downhill, third in the Super-G, sixth in the slalom, and 18th in the Giant Slalom. And she produced career-best performances since the Olympics to put the pressure on Shiffrin, including a fourth-place finish in the GS held in Åre.

In the end, however, Mikaela Shiffrin managed to hold on to her well-fought lead and make history as the woman with the joint-most World Cup overall titles. Her next target? It’s likely Marcel Hirscher, as he leads the men’s list and the all-time list with eight overall titles. Only time will tell, however, whether Shiffrin overcomes that particular hurdle.