Mikaela Shiffrin Gets One Record, LeBron James Chases Another. That’s Where Similarities End.

Over the course of the recent past (and near future), the two of them have encroached upon cherished records, one on distant, snowy mountainsides, often while America sleeps; the other in domestic basketball arenas, occasionally while the Eastern time zone tries to stay awake. They are both international superstars, undeniably, but in a way that requires qualification to avoid false equivalence. LeBron James’s fame (if not his popularity, another issue altogether) is universal; Mikaela Shiffrin’s is vertical. Both are on a microscopic list of the best to perform their respective sports. Ever. But their sports exist in very different realms, and that has shaped the records they might soon own.

Early Tuesday morning in the U.S., Shiffrin won her 83rd career World Cup ski race, a giant slalom in Italy, passing retired fellow U.S. racer Lindsey Vonn for the most career victories by a woman (or American of either gender). That number could grow quickly: Shiffrin will race another giant slalom Wednesday in Italy and two slaloms over the weekend in the Czech Republic. Beyond 83 lies 86, the overall record established by Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden in a career that ended in 1989. Because the Alpine World Championships interrupt the World Cup schedule, Shiffrin can’t mathematically pass Stenmark until late February. But: No hurry. Shiffrin won’t turn 28 until March 13, and told me last month she plans to keep racing at least until the 2026 Olympics.

LeBron enters Tuesday night’s game against the Clippers 223 points shy of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA career record of 38,387, also established, like Stenmark’s – although with vastly more attention in the U.S. – in the spring of 1989. Basketball is also a punishing sport, and LeBron is 38 years old and hauling around two decades of hard fouls given and taken, but you have to very much like his chances of soon supplanting Kareem, likely sometime before the All-Star break commences on Feb. 15.

The two of them share little: A white woman raised on skis in New England and Colorado and a Black man raised in sneakers in Akron, Ohio. But there is an important commonality to their career paths that has shaped their experiences, and ours. Both were prodigies: LeBron famously appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a 17-year-old high school junior, with the cover line THE CHOSEN ONE, and a prescient story famously written by my late friend and colleague, Grant Wahl. Shiffrin’s future greatness was no less projected, but in a smaller world. From her early teens, her skill was transcendent. In the winter of 2007, Shiffrin was 11 years old and training at Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont; one of her instructors was Chip Knight, a three-time Olympic ski racer. “I’m watching her train,” Knight told me in 2014, “and she’s just incredible. She’s doing things, fundamentally, that I was still working on at the end of my professional career.”

This projected greatness is the small slice where their Venn Diagram circles overlap – that and the towering records they are both likely about to hold. Beyond that, much of their existence is defined by the culture and economics of their games. For instance: Shiffrin has earned millions; LeBron earns millions every week. (This is neither an endorsement of professional basketball nor a criticism of professional ski racing: Athletes are paid what the market will bear).

Something else will happen – and has been happening – as Shiffrin and LeBron reach and surpass their records (*presumably). The NBA, according to commissioner Adam Silver, is preparing a ceremony to accompany James’s record, and Kareem is expected to be in attendance. It will be a big moment, especially for the increasingly distant generation (mine) that witnessed all or most of Kareem’s career, and consumed a seemingly endless succession of majestic sky hooks, one of most inventive and original moves in the history of the game, and arguably the single most productive.

But neither the ceremony nor the achievement will be used to prove LeBron’s greatness. To be sure, LeBron is a polarizing persona both as a modern-day performer and historical figure. (Aside: Three years ago I did a talk at a maximum security correctional facility; during the Q&A, an inmate allowed that Jordan was the best player in history, but who is No. 2? “LeBron?” I offered. I was booed and catcalled. Their consensus was Kobe Bryant, but LeBron was not a popular alternative). Nevertheless: LeBron has won NBA titles with three different teams (only Robert Horry, John Salley and Danny Green have done likewise, and none carried the load that LeBron did on those teams). His combination of size, speed and power was unmatched, and remains rare. He is generous with his money and his time. He did once say, “I’m taking my talents to South Beach,” and the shrillness – however harmless – of that declaration has stuck. He will never be viewed as benevolently as Steph Curry.

But his place in NBA and cultural history is secure, if not unanimous. The points are just a punctuation.

Meanwhile, Shiffrin’s steady overtaking of Vonn and Stenmark has been cast as proof of her excellence – the cake itself, not just the icing. Content – from both Team Shiffrin and media — describing Shiffrin’s recent wins, and non-wins (some of which have been excellent performances despite not being victories) has breathlessly tried to explain the power of what Shiffrin is accomplishing. And you know what? That’s fine. Alpine ski racing has a modest audience compared to the big U.S. professional sports, and Shiffrin’s record pursuit can potentially grow that audience, and Shiffrin’s brand. All good. On the other hand, when you’re explaining to a sports fan why a record is meaningful, you’ve already lost some of the fight. Passing Kareem needs no framing; nor does Alex Ovechkin’s pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s career goals record.

It comes down to this: LeBron’s record is a coronation, and Shiffrin’s, at least in part, is a validation. That’s not fair, it just is. But Shiffrin deserves better.

But this is often the plight of the Olympic sport, where athletes, coaches and publicists spend endless megabytes convincing the public and media that 20 feet is a very good pole vault from Mondo Duplantis or that even though Katie Ledecky appears to win easily, it’s not easy, or hey, you try doing a flip on the balance beam. In these sports, success mandates context, and context subsumes purity. Athletic performance is best on its own merits, absent explanation. Greatness that speaks for itself.

Shiffrin participates in a very difficult and perilous sport, in which changing conditions – melting snow, encroaching shadows, a gust of wind – make consistency especially difficult. Yet she was for a long time, stunningly consistent: At the end of the 2019 season, just past her 24th birthday, she had 60 World Cup wins and seemed likely to obliterate all the career records in short order. Life intervened: Shiffrin lost her grandmother and her father four months apart; Covid happened. She climbed back, and at one point this year – a few days after she told me, “In one way, I know I’ll win another World Cup race, but I also know you can’t be certain” – won five in a row in three different disciplines, which is preposterous. (There I go framing the achievement again, lessening its raw power).

Shiffrin was a prodigy who quickly made good on her promise – she had more World Cups than any U.S. woman other than Vonn by the age of 21 – and burnout was widely predicted. In late 2017 for an SI story previewing the 2018 Olympics, one of Shiffrin’s former coaches, Brandon Dyksterhouse, told me, ‘”Mikaela is doing a huge volume of training, at least two times any other skier in the world, the majority of it on injected surfaces with ultra-aggressive equipment, unforgiving skis and boots. The wear and tear is phenomenal. You look at the women’s ranks: Lindsey [Vonn] has been rebuilt multiple times. Lara Gut (Switzerland) has been rebuilt. Anna Veith (nee: Fenninger, Austria), has been rebuilt. It’s not a question of if you will get injured, it’s a question of when. Mikaela has defied the odds to this point, and you wonder when or if it will catch up to her.’’ More than five years later, Shiffrin has still not had a major surgical injury; it has not caught up to her. She has fulfilled her promise, and then fulfilled some more.

There’s little doubt that Shiffrin’s American profile was damaged by her performance at the Beijing Olympics, where she skied out in slalom, giant slalom, and the slalom portion of the combined, and did not win any medals. Ski afficionados will explain that the months-long grind of the World Cup is the true test of greatness, and that would not be wrong. But the U.S. is a Big Event nation, and therefore an Olympic nation. Shiffrin knows it, too. When we spoke in December, she said this about the 2026 Olympics ahead: “Cortina is a place that I love. I’d like to experience an Olympics there.” Pause. “And of course if I’m racing, I’m going to want to be a medal contender, and there’s all that goes along with that.” All that goes along with that. Despite efforts to cushion her Olympic experience for her, she understands her world – and ours – better than we imagined. (Also, Shiffrin won a combined three Olympic medals — two gold — at the 2014 and ’18 Games; the only American woman with more is Julia Mancuso, who won four).

This combination of factors – ski racing’s low profile in the U.S., American fans’ obsession with major sports, Shiffrin’s quiet Olympics – left her playing catch up with respect in a year that might have otherwise cemented her place in skiing history with several years left ahead. It’s unfortunate. In reality, the truth is simple: Shiffrin is one of best ski racers in history (not going to mention any farm animals here, that’s just too tired and reductive), and there is a very good chance that soon she will have won more World Cup races – each like a playoff game in another sport — than any skier in history. That is a towering legacy of dominance over time.

The numbers attained and ahead – 83, 86, 87 – should be celebrated vigorously. But they tell us a story we should already know.

Tim Layden is writer-at-large for NBC Sports. He was previously a senior writer at Sports Illustrated for 25 years.

Originally, Ilia Malinin was the Lutzgod. He created that Instagram handle, named after the second-hardest jump in figure skating, at age 13 in 2018.

Later in his early teens, Malinin landed his first quadruple jump, a Salchow. The term Quadg0d popped into his head, and he created a second Instagram. Others learned of it. They asked why he would call himself that when he had only landed one quad, while the world’s best (and much older) skaters could land five.

“That gave me enough motivation to try and land every single quad,” Malinin said in an interview for a “Chasing Gold” episode that airs on NBC on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET, before the U.S. Figure Skating Championships men’s free skate.

FIGURE SKATING NATIONALS: Broadcast Schedule | New Era for U.S.

The Lutzgod account has been dormant for four and a half years.

The Quadg0d is the poster boy at this week’s nationals in San Jose, California. With none of the six 2022 Olympic singles skaters competing this fall, the 18-year-old from Virginia filled the void by living up to his new handle.

In September, he became the first skater to land a quad Axel in competition, giving him five of the six quads (he has reportedly landed the sixth, a loop, in practice). The Axel is the most difficult of the six jumps, largely because the forward-entry jump requires an extra half-revolution.

NBC Sports analyst Johnny Weir equated its significance in the sport to the moon landing.

Malinin landed it again in October, November and December, winning three of his four events in his first full senior international season and ranking second in the world.

He is expected to dominate nationals like Nathan Chen did the last six years. Chen stepped away from competition after winning the Olympics last February. He is studying at Yale and not expected to return for another Olympic run, though he has not ruled it out.

Enter Malinin, who last year made it the closest of Chen’s U.S. titles, though still a distant 25.53 points behind. Nationals were not a direct Olympic Trials. A selection committee chose the three-man team based on a body of work over many months, so Malinin was left off in favor of the much more experienced and accomplished Vincent Zhou and Jason Brown.

But everyone knew what was coming.

Chen, known as the quad king who mastered every four-revolution jump except the Axel, said that Malinin was “miles ahead” of where he was at the same age. Zhou, before he was beaten by Malinin, asked if he could get a picture with “the future men’s U.S. champion.” Brown said, “U.S. figure skating is so lucky to have such a bright future with Ilia.”

Malinin made his senior world championships debut in March. He was fourth after the short program, saying it showed he deserved to be on the Olympic team. He put pressure on himself in the free skate with a chance to earn a medal, then fell on a quad Salchow and dropped to ninth place.

Malinin lived up to his handles in winning April’s junior worlds, landing all four of his quads in the free skate and shattering Yuna Kim‘s margin of victory record across disciplines.

He went home to Virginia. He spends half of his days George C. Marshall High School, where he was added to the bulleted notable alumni before graduating. He spends his afternoons at SkateQuest in Reston, where his parents, retired Olympic figure skaters for Uzbekistan, coach.

His parents say that they didn’t plan for their son to go into the family business, even though he spent plenty of time at the rink. Then came that one day at age 6.

“He asked to go on the ice for fun, and we said, ‘OK, that’s fine,’” said his mom, Tatyana Malinina. “He started like that, and now it’s continued.”

Malinina, sitting next to husband Roman Skorniyakov, said she is the bad cop when it comes to coaching their son. Skorniyakov is the good cop.

“I show him toughness. He needs to be tough,” she said. “Ilia has a very good relationship with Roman. But if he wants to know opinion exactly, then he listens to mother.”

To no shock, Malinin’s non-familial skating inspirations are the two greatest jumpers in history — Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan and Chen. Malinin has followed Chen’s path in taking on Rafael Arutyunyan as a part-time coach and Shae-Lynn Bourne as a choreographer.

Arutyunyan, a gruff Armenian-American who has coached for 46 years, remembered that Malinin was nothing special at first glance. His opinion changed when he saw the kid compete for the first time. He was reminded of Chen.

“Maybe it’s not nice to say, but these guys both are killers,” Arutyunyan said.

Arutyunyan spoke with the same boldness last spring in a conversation with Skorniyakov, predicting that Malinin would become the first man to land a quad Axel. Within two months, U.S. Figure Skating posted video of Malinin hitting the Axel at a camp.

“When I did it the first time, I had no clue I was in the air. I just had to hope for the best,” Malinin said. “Now the muscle memory is starting to kick in, so it’s a lot easier to land. … It feels like every other quad jump.”

So it’s no surprise that Arutyunyan believes Malinin can become the first skater to land a five-revolution jump. Before Skate America in October, Malinin said he hoped to land one in practice by the end of this season.

“It’s definitely in the back of my mind right now,” he said last week. “After the season, I’ll think about it.”

The focus right now is becoming the second-youngest U.S. champion in the last half-century, after Chen. And continuing to live up to his Instagram handles.

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MELBOURNE, Australia — Tommy Paul received a lot less attention than his younger, less-experienced, opponent, Ben Shelton, heading into their all-American quarterfinal at the Australian Open.

Perhaps that was a product of the fascination with the out-of-nowhere Shelton: Just 20, and less than a year after winning an NCAA title for the University of Florida, he was traveling outside of the United States for the first time and participating in his second Grand Slam tournament.

So the loud shouts heard most often emanating from the Rod Laver Arena stands on Wednesday, under the sun that carried the temperature to 87 degrees, were for one of the pair: “Let’s go, Benny! Let’s go!” or “Benny, Benny, Benny! Oi, Oi, Oi!” or “Go, Gators!”

“He had a pretty good trip,” Paul noted.

Paul’s story is a pretty good one, too, and it is the one that will keep going at Melbourne Park: The 25-year-old was a star in the juniors and now is making good on that promise in the pros, using a 7-6 (6), 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Shelton to reach his first Grand Slam semifinal in his 14th appearance at a major.

AUSTRALIAN OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men

“Every junior to pro has a different path. … Mine has been, like, the slowest,” the 35th-ranked Paul said, mentioning a group of Americans he grew up with: Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Reilly Opelka. “I like to think the last four years of my career has just been like steady steps moving up. I mean, that’s what it’s felt like. I feel like hopefully 2023 is the year where I really make a big jump.”

As a bonus, Paul’s mother was in the crowd for the biggest victory of his career. He said Mom booked a flight after he won his fourth-round match, then went straight from work to the airport to make the long journey from the U.S.

“She’s done a lot for me, from when I was really young until now. She’s sacrificed a ton to get me here,” Paul said. “She deserves to be here and deserves to see me win big matches.”

Paul’s next opponent will be 21-time Grand Slam singles champion Novak Djokovic, who overwhelmed No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev 6-1, 6-2, 6-4. After dealing with a worrisome left hamstring in his first two matches, Djokovic has been on quite a roll: He’s won his past 11 sets and dropped a total of 27 games in that span as he chases a 10th championship in Melbourne.

Rublev dropped to 0-7 in major quarterfinals.

The other men’s semifinal Friday is Stefanos Tsitsipas against Karen Khachanov.

Paul initially broke through as a teenager, taking the 2015 junior title at the French Open (beating Fritz) and getting to the final at Flushing Meadows that year, too (losing to Fritz). Since turning professional, he has claimed one tour-level trophy, at Stockholm in 2021, and, until this week, had made it as far as the fourth round at just one Grand Slam tournament — at Wimbledon a year ago.

Now Paul is the first man from his country to make it to the final four at Melbourne Park since Andy Roddick in 2009. Roddick was also the last man from the U.S. to win a Grand Slam singles championship, at the U.S. Open 20 years ago.

And while Shelton was sort of adopted by the locals — “The crowds have been pretty unbelievable. … They kind of treated me like one of their own,” he observed — Paul was not drawing the same amount adoration.

“I’ve been on the outside courts, grinding, until the round of 16,” Paul said. “I’ve been flying under the radar a little bit.”

No longer.

The women’s semifinals Thursday night (3:30 a.m. Thursday EST) will be Victoria Azarenka vs. Elena Rybakina, and Aryna Sabalenka vs. Magda Linette.

Sabalenka improved to 9-0 in 2023 without dropping a set yet by saving 12 of 14 break points while beating Donna Vekic 6-3, 6-2. Linette never got past the third round in 29 other Grand Slam tournaments — and exited in the first round at 17 of those — but is still around after a 6-3, 7-5 win over two-time major finalist Karolina Pliskova.

Based purely on ranking, Paul offered a much sterner test than anyone Shelton had faced in Australia: His prior opponents were ranked 67th, 96th, 113th and 154th.

Paul, meanwhile, took out two seeds: No. 24 Roberto Bautista Agut and No. 30 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

This matchup was the first Grand Slam quarterfinal between two American men since 2007, when Roddick beat Mardy Fish in Melbourne, and Paul generally was content to block back those big lefty serves that kept coming from Shelton, then do what he could to get the better of back-and-forths.

Paul was more steady than spectacular, limiting his miscues with compact swings off both wings.

“Extremely solid from the baseline,” Shelton said. “He did a great job moving me around the court, keeping me off balance.”

They shared a light moment when Paul’s coach, Brad Stine, told him to look for a serve down the “T” on the Ad side of the court. Shelton noticed the exchange and kicked his serve wide, leaving Paul out of position and with no chance at reaching the ace. Both players smiled.

Shelton broke twice late in the third to steal that set and yelled, “Yeah!” as he raised his left fist, then pointed to his ear with his right index finger, as if telling the crowd, “Let me hear you!”

Maybe Shelton relaxed a bit there, because he started the next set poorly, double-faulting twice in a row and then missing a backhand to gift-wrap a break for Paul.

Soon enough, it was Paul letting out a scream of delight — “Let’s go!” — after the last point, then meeting Shelton at the net for a warm hug.

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