Shiffrin First Athlete To Reach 1M CHF Prize Money

With her record-breaking season, Mikaela Shiffrin (Avon, Colo.) became the first athlete on the FIS World Cup circuit to top the 1,000,000 CHF mark in prize money.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) always publishes World Cup prize money standings on their website, though the World Cup prize money standings does not include World Championship prize money earnings. As such, FIS recently featured Shiffrin in an article about total prize money standings. 

Shiffrin earned 886,386 Swiss Francs (CHF) for her incredible World Cup season, which saw her grab the most victories in a single season that numbered 17. Added to that amount is Shffirin’s haul at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships last February in Are (SWE), that included gold in super-G and slalom, and bronze in giant slalom, which gave her an additional 114,000 CHF in prize money, allowing her to crack the one-million Swiss Franc mark with 1,000,386 CHF for the season.

According to FIS, equal prize money has always been applied on the FIS Alpine World Cup tour. World Cup organizers typically pay 45,000 CHF per World Cup victory - some venues more and some less - with prize money going down to 30th place, at 500 CHF. Shiffrin sees this as an opportunity to get future generations excited about getting involved in the sport of alpine ski racing. 

It’s a really cool opportunity. I’m extremely proud to be part of a sport where there is no gender pay gap. It’s great, because perhaps it will inspire future generations to take part in this sport that I love so much. From my perspective, equal prize money means there is a demand by the public for both men’s and women’s alpine ski racing. If people want to watch and the sport has fans, that’s ultimately where the money comes from. I feel like we, as athletes, have a responsibility to bring attention to this sport – to make it exciting to watch and bring edgy and fun personalities into it. Just like any sport, ski racing needs these personalities and a high level of competition in order to thrive, and I’m thankful to the fans for following along.

Shiffrin is one of the few remaining multi-discipline skiers on the tour, and the only athlete skiing and winning in all six currently contested disciplines. In fact, in December with her career-first super-G victory, Shiffrin became the first athlete to win in all six disciplines, including parallel slalom. At the mere age of 24, Shiffrin has a lot of future potential. With her record 17 World Cup victories across four disciplines in the 2019 season alone, she has already reached 60 World Cup victories.   

Read the full article on fis-ski.com.