Mikaela Shiffrin won her fourth reindeer at today’s 2019/20 slalom season opener in Levi, Finland.
Winning racers are traditionally awarded with a prize at many of the annual World Cup races, along with the prize money. In Kitzbuhel, Hahnenkamm winners get gondola cabins named after them and Lindsey Vonn famously won a cow at Val D’Isere in France.
Winners at Levi are given a reindeer, and with four wins from the last six world cups there now, Shiffrin has four deer. The first three she has named Rudolph, Sven and Mr. Gru and her fourth deer she named Ingemar in honour, she said, of the great skier, after asking his permission first.
As well as winning the deer, 24-year-old Shiffrin added another world record to her collection, overtaking Ingemar Stenmark’s long-standing record for most slalom wins by a man or a woman, with her 41st victory in the discipline.
It was also Shiffrin’s 61st World Cup win putting her one win behind Annemarie Moser-Pröll (62 wins) who is in 4th place on the all time winners table behind Marcel Hirscher (67 wins), Lindsey Vonn (82 wins) and Ingemar Stenmark (86 wins).
(picture credit: Red Bull)
