CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin knows all about the bargains the Olympics force athletes to make.
The risk of exposing yourself on the world stage. The way it challenges your physical and mental health. There’s the ever-present fear of failure, and how it shapes—fairly or unfairly—the public’s perception of you.
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“It’s not the easiest thing in the world to do,” she said.
No, it’s not.
Trying to push negotiations toward more amicable terms is nearly impossible. The greatest skier in the history of the sport has been debated for years.
On Wednesday, Shiffrin may have finally found peace.
Standing on the medal stand, more than a decade after winning her first slalom gold, Shiffrin closed her eyes, mouthed the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and breathed in the moment her second slalom gold was hung around her neck, based on relentless practice, talent, pure purpose and a confidence that’s harder to come by than you might think.
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As teammate Paula Moltzan put it, the peace she felt didn’t come from being free of the burden of “being torn apart by someone sitting on the couch.”
No, Shiffrin is returning to the top of the Olympic medal stand for the first time in eight years, and she’s committed to what drew her to New England’s bunny slopes as a child: the challenge of bending gravity and bending her body to her own will, and she navigates from here to there while zipping between gates at top speed.
She didn’t come to the Dolomites to win, it was just a by-product. To be honest, her relationship with racing is “complicated.” Happiness does not lie in the results, but in pursuing the best version of yourself.
Shiffrin discovered it on a sunny winter afternoon, when the stakes were disturbingly high.
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After missing out on the team combined and giant slalom, she didn’t need to be reminded of what could happen if things went wrong until her last chance to leave Italy with a medal.
At this point, Shiffrin will be viewed as one of the undisputed GOATs of women’s skiing – with 108 World Cup wins, the number can’t be wrong – while a public that only pays attention to the Olympics is also disappointed with her failure to finish on the podium in any of the six races she competed in in Beijing four years ago.
She had long grown tired of answering questions about why the talent she displayed so readily elsewhere was so elusive at the Olympics.
But Shiffrin dutifully answered the questions anyway, fully aware that if she left Cortina empty-handed, these questions would linger all the way to the 2030 Olympics, with the three medals she had already stashed away in her Colorado home somehow forgotten.
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When you sign up for an event of this magnitude, it’s part of the deal that the importance of everything that happens outside of the event can be skewed, no matter how important it is.
Frustrating? Of course it is. Yet Shiffrin knew it was a price she needed to be willing to pay.
“In order to do this today, I need to accept the possibility that these issues will keep coming up,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Don’t fight it,’ and live in my own moment.”
In a riveting performance of 1 minute, 39.10 seconds, Shiffrin delivered an indelible performance that should silence the critics she tried so hard to silence. She doesn’t compete like a 30-year-old misanthrope because the pressure follows her wherever she goes. She races with joy and precision.
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Really, isn’t that the point?
While she admits she still doesn’t quite know what to do with the leaderboard when she sees it after her run — Shiffrin just knows the green next to her name is good because it means she’s the fastest — she didn’t have to look at it again after winning the gold medal.
She just knew.
“I can’t even explain the feeling of crossing the finish line, knowing the ski time before I saw it, and then seeing the time and thinking, ‘Oh my God (crap),'” Shiffrin said.
Her time was a full 1.5 seconds faster than silver medalist Camille Rast of Switzerland, which may surprise her. But it turned out not to be.
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The women who face her every week know what they’re in for when she’s on the starting roster. As Rust watched Shiffrin lead by nearly a second in the first run, he knew his dream of standing on the podium was over.
“I was like, ‘Okay, the gold medal is gone,’ but the other two medals are still up in the air,” Rust said with a laugh.
That’s been the case for the better part of a decade. Shiffrin has sealed a record ninth World Cup season title in her favorite sport. When she’s at her best, she’s nearly unbeatable.
As she slowly moves from interview to interview, doing her best to deliver fresh, thoughtful answers, those who follow her closely know all too well how she got to this point.
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“It might not be easy for her to show her performance on a day like this,” Germany’s Lena Duerr said. She entered the final in second place, but her medal hopes were dashed after missing the first gate. “She must be under a lot of pressure.”
Always. Everyone in the sport knows this. Above all is the deeply introspective Shiffrin. While she’s quick to point out that it’s hard for her to do it alone—following Shiffrin’s team around the world is a big part of her success—but when she’s on the slopes, it’s just her.
So maybe it’s fitting that at the end of her fourth Olympic journey, Shiffrin is alone, if only for a moment, not for the glory of a gold medal but for the satisfaction of competing for the first time in an event that demands so much from its competitors and fulfilling it on her terms.
“It feels really good to be able to remove those doubts and uncertainties,” she said.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
