Mikaela Shiffrin ended an eight-year Olympic gold drought on Wednesday, capturing the women’s slalom title at the Milano Cortina Games.
Racing at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Italy, Shiffrin surged to the top of the leaderboard with a blistering 47.13-second opening run. She followed it up with the second-fastest time in the final run, securing gold with a combined 1:39.10 — a decisive 1.50 seconds ahaead of Switzerland’s Camille Rast, who claimed silver. Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson took bronze. After crossing the finish line, Shiffrin crouched in visible relief, the weight of past Olympic frustrations finally lifted. “This is a moment I’ve been pretty scared of for a long time,” she told NBC Sports.
Shiffrin first struck Olympic gold as an 18-year-old at the 2014 Sochi Games and added gold and silver in 2018. Though widely regarded as the most accomplished skier in World Cup history with 108 wins, Shiffrin had struggled with Olympic success in recent years. She left Beijing in 2022 without a medal after crashing in three of her six events, and earlier this week fell short in both the team combined and giant slalom races. In the giant slalom, where she finished 11th despite clean runs, Italy’s Federica Brignone delivered a standout performance to win gold.
In addition, a 2024 crash left Shiffrin with a puncture wound to her abdomen and lasting trauma to her oblique muscles. She later revealed she had been dealing with lingering PTSD from that incident. Still, she leaned into her experience heading into these Games. “I think it’d be impossible not to take my experiences from previous Olympics, including Beijing, and sort of have those be somehow relevant in this Games,” Shiffrin said earlier in the competition. “But I feel like sitting here right now, I feel so much gratitude to be here. It’s like excitement, there’s adrenaline, I’m certainly nervous at times, but really a lot of a sense of gratitude. I’m excited to take that with me for the entire time that we’re here.”
That perspective appeared to fuel her final run. Germany’s Lena Duerr, who had been in contention after the first leg, straddled the opening gate on her second attempt, clearing the way for Shiffrin to seal the win. “Honestly, the skiing is what I cared about,” Shiffrin said. “Of course, a medal and gold, that’s a dream come true. But at some point this week, I just said, like, stop dreaming. Just ski.”
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