Giant slalom win caps Shiffrin's record-setting season
After capping her record-setting season with career win 88, Mikaela Shiffrin was asked one question over and over again — and she couldn't really answer it. What's next?
“What do you think will come next? How many victories?,” Johan Eliasch, president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, wanted to know after handing Shiffrin her fifth big crystal globe, the prize for winning the World Cup overall title.
“I don't have a guess at how many,” Shiffrin replied. “Sometimes a part of me feels like that's always my last victory. I hope not, I keep heading for more.”
A week after breaking the record of Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark, the American extended the all-time best mark for most career wins to 88 by winning the last race of the season, a giant slalom at the World Cup Finals on Sunday in Soldeu, Andorra.
Her 21st career win in the discipline marked yet another milestone as it moved Shiffrin past Swiss skier Vreni Schneider, who had 20 World Cup GS victories between the mid-80s and mid-90s. The American has won seven of the last eight events and took the GS world title last month.
The overall record, between men and women, is held by Stenmark, who won 46 giant slaloms in the 1970s and 1980s.
The “what's next?” question also came from her boyfriend and World Cup downhill champion, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who conducted a course-side interview after the race.
“I don't know, you guys tell me. Just keep moving right along,” said Shiffrin, who also secured the slalom and GS titles this season.
After Kilde asked her about plans to improve for next season, Shiffrin quipped: “We can discuss that later, in private.”
Shiffrin also set a personal best of 2,206 World Cup points from 31 starts this season, two points more than her tally from 2018-19, when she competed in 26 races.
Only one skier secured more points in a single season: Slovenian great Tina Maze ended her 2012-13 campaign on 2,414.
Later, Shiffrin posed for photos with men's overall champion Marco Odermatt, who set the men's record of 2,042 points. It's the first World Cup season in which both the women's and men's overall champion finished on more than 2,000 points.
Sunday's result also marked Shiffrin's record 138th career World Cup podium, moving her one ahead of former teammate Lindsey Vonn's mark of 137.
Cowboys acquire wide receiver Cooks from Texans
The Dallas Cowboys acquired receiver Brandin Cooks in a trade with the Houston Texans on Sunday, adding a speedy veteran to play alongside CeeDee Lamb.
Houston gets a fifth-round pick this year and a 2024 sixth-rounder in a deal reminiscent of a year ago when Dallas sent No. 1 receiver Amari Cooper to Cleveland for two late-round picks. The difference in the trades is the Texans will pay $6 million of Cooks' $18 million salary. The Browns absorbed the entire $20 million owed to Cooper.
The 29-year-old Cooks has six 1,000-yard seasons in nine years, with career highs of 1,204 yards with the Rams in 2018 and nine touchdowns with the Saints in 2015. He has 8,616 yards and 49 TDs.
• The Carolina Panthers added yet another experienced veteran to their offense, agreeing to terms with free agent wide receiver Adam Thielen from the Minnesota Vikings.
Thielen, 32, was released earlier this offseason after spending the past nine seasons with the Vikings, where he caught 534 passes for 6,682 yards and 55 touchdowns in 135 games. Thielen caught 70 passes last season for 716 yards and six touchdowns.
Castellano gets prestigious jockey award at Santa Anita
Javier Castellano, a four-time
Eclipse Award winning jockey and member of racing's Hall of Fame, was accompanied by friends, family members and a number of fellow riders on Sunday at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia as he accepted the prestigious George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award Trophy from the track's Senior Vice President and General Manager Nate Newby in a Runhappy Winner's Circle ceremony.
The Woolf Award has been presented annually by Santa Anita since 1950. The winner is determined by a vote of jockey's nationwide and is named for one of the greatest big money riders of his era. Other finalists this year were jockeys Daniel Centeno, Terry Houghton, Edwin Maldonado and Willie Martinez.
Entering Thursday, the 45-year-old Castellano had ridden 5,624 winners and banked more than $378 million in purse earnings, which is second alltime behind John Velazquez ($463 million).