CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin’s turbulent, 12-year Olympic journey got here full circle Wednesday when she received the slalom by an enormous 1.50 seconds to interrupt her lengthy medal drought on the Winter Games.
Shiffrin put in two dominant runs in attractive situations amid the jagged peaks of the Dolomites to indicate, once more, why she is regarded by many as the best Alpine skier of all time.
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United States’ Mikaela Shiffrin, heart, winner of an alpine ski, girls’s slalom race, celebrates with second-placed Switzerland’s Camille Rast, left, and third-placed Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson, on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Picture/Andy Wong)
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United States’ Mikaela Shiffrin, heart, winner of an alpine ski, girls’s slalom race, celebrates with second-placed Switzerland’s Camille Rast, left, and third-placed Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson, on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Picture/Andy Wong)
It was the third-largest margin of victory in a girls’s Olympic slalom, the occasion she received as a fresh-faced teenager in Sochi in 2014 to underline her standing as a snowboarding star.
Twelve years later, she delivered once more in her favourite race and the feelings got here out within the end space after being embraced by world champion Camille Rast of Switzerland, who took silver, and bronze-medalist Anna Swenn Larsson of Sweden.
The 30-year-old Shiffrin pumped her fists to the gang after which was preventing again tears as she approached her mother and coach, Eileen, for an extended hug on the sidelines.
Shiffrin stated it was “actually laborious to grasp and course of” her victory.
“Possibly,” she added, “simply as we speak, I noticed what occurred in Sochi. It’s loopy.”
For Shiffrin, perhaps it additionally was a launch of all of the stress after failing to win an Olympic medal since including gold and silver to her assortment in Pyeongchang in 2018.
A nightmarish 0-for-6 efficiency in Beijiing was adopted in Cortina d’Ampezzo this yr with an 11th place within the big slalom and a fourth-place end with Breezy Johnson within the crew mixed, through which Shiffrin positioned fifteenth within the slalom portion.
That’s all prior to now.
Shiffrin has now received three golds and a silver on the Olympics so as to add to her document complete on World Cup wins — it’s 108 and counting, together with 71 in slalom.
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
