Third time’s the charm.
In her third and final attempt to medal at the Milan Cortina Games, Mikaela Shiffrin grabbed some hardware, winning gold in her signature slalom race on Wednesday morning with a dominant time of 1:39.10.
In slalom, racers take two runs and the times are combined to determine the final results, and Shiffrin only bested her leading first run.
Coming into the finish, she squatted down with her head between her knees in relief after she finally got some Olympic redemption. She later shed some tears as she waved to the crowd and quickly left the finish area to hug her mom.
The 30-year-old nailed her most important run of her Olympics legacy, winning by the largest margin (1.50 seconds) in any Olympic alpine skiing event since 1998.
She also now holds the most Olympic gold medals of any U.S. alpine skier, and is both the youngest and oldest American woman to ever win alpine gold. She claimed it firstly at 18-years-old in 2014.
Switzerland’s Camille Rast finished second (1:40.60) and Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson rounded out the podium in third (1:40.81).
Fellow Americans — Paul Moltzen and AJ Hurt — finished in eighth and 19th, respectively. Nina O’Brien of California did not finish the first run early Wednesday morning.
Shiffrin was poised for the gold after taking a sizable lead following the first run with a finish time of 47.13 seconds down the the Cortina d’Ampezzo course, which landed 0.82 of a second ahead of the rest of the field.
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Germany’s Lena Duerr followed Shiffrin in second after the first run and Sweden’s Cornelia Oehlund placed third. However, both shockingly skied out during the second run — Duerr hooked the first gate with her right ski and Oehlund snapped her left pole in half that threw off her balance a few gates later.
This Winter Olympics was meant to be Shiffrin’s revenge year.
After collecting three medals in 2018, she walked away empty handed in Beijing four years ago after skiing out of the course in both slalom and giant slalom. Later on, she had a major crash during a World Cup giant slalom race where she suffered a puncture wound in her side in November 2024. She also dealt with PTSD after the crash.
Prior to Wednesday, the Vail, Colo. native was quiet in Milan.
Shiffrin and Breezy Johnson combined to finish fourth in the women’s team combined event. Days later, she finished 11th in women’s giant slalom.
Of her record 108 World Cup wins, 71 came in slalom. Shiffrin also holds two Olympic gold medals from the both slalom and giant slalom in 2018 in Pyeongchang, and a silver from the team combined event at the same Games.
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