I know most of you guys don't know/care about this, but this is pretty huge over here. In terms of popularity, alpine skiing in Austria is pretty much like hockey in Canada, so ... huge.
Of course it's hard to compare eras, but Stenmarks record has stood forever and, like Yikes said, was comparable to Gretzkys status. I do think Hermann Maier would have beaten it without the motorcycle crash which severely derailed his career, and for a while, it looked like Lindsey Vonn could get there, but because of injuries she just fell short (82).
I can't speak to anything before the 90s, but Shiffrin is the GOAT from the timespan I have seen. She won about a third of all the races he participated in, which is just bat#### crazy to think about. And I do think the OP is slightly unfair to her, she has also won a few downhill races ... if we just want to compare slaloms and giant slaloms, it's 86 to 72 for Stenmark, but I have no doubt Shiffrin will beat that too. She's still young (beating that record at only 27 ... again, hard to put into words just how good she's been), so if she wants to continue her career for a few more years, the sky's the limit. Unless the decides to hang em up before 30, I doo think she cracks 100 wins easily when all is said and done.
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