Mikaela Shiffrin has sealed her place as skiing's greatest by winning a record-extending 100th World Cup race, fulfilling a quest that was put on hold by a serious crash three months earlier.
Back to racing in her favoured slalom event, Shiffrin kept and added to her first-run lead to finish 0.61 seconds ahead of Zrinka Ljutic for her historic triumph in the Italian resort of Sestriere on Sunday.
Shiffrin also tied an all-time World Cup record for men and women, as her 155th career top-three finish on the podium matched Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark.
The 29-year-old American crossed the finish line and took a long look at the scoreboard showing her victory. She then looked again over her left shoulder with an expression of amazement.
She lay down on the snow with her right hand to her race helmet, and was helped to her feet by third-placed teammate Paula Moltzan, who hugged her.
Shiffrin cried at first when she was asked in a post-race interview what it meant after all she had been through in the past few months.
"Everyone had been so nice and so supportive. I am so grateful, thank you," she said.
Shiffrin's 99th win was earned exactly three months ago in a slalom at Gurgl, Austria.
No.100 had been within clear sight one week later when Shriffin crashed out of a giant slalom at Killington, Vermont, while racing fast as the first-run leader.
The injuries she suffered in a tumbling fall -- severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound -- sidelined her for several weeks and left "PTSD-like" anxiety about racing giant slalom.
In two giant slaloms at Sestriere, she placed 25th Friday and on Saturday finished outside the top-30 fastest racers in the first run for the first time since 2012.
Shiffrin and Stenmark are the two greatest record-setters in the World Cup's 58-year history.
The Swede's record of 86 World Cup wins was broken by Shiffrin in March 2023, almost 34 years after his last win.
Stenmark's 86th win -- a giant slalom at Aspen, Colorado in February 1989 -- also was his 155th and last podium result.
Among Shiffrin's century of wins, 63 have come in slalom, after she claimed her first back in December 2012. She also has 22 giant slalom wins, five each in super-G and parallel races, four in downhill and one in alpine combined.