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Mikaela Shiffrin’s Winter Olympics curse shows no sign of abating. The greatest skier of all time finished 11th in Sunday’s giant slalom, 0.92 seconds down on Federica Brignone, who doubled up on Olympic golds after winning the super-G on Thursday.
Shiffrin dropped a further four places after coming seventh in the first run, to extend her streak of Olympic races without a medal to eight.
This was at least a significant improvement on her giant slalom performance in Beijing four years ago, when she crashed out at an early gate in her first run. She entered six events in 2022 and failed to win a medal in any of them, crashing out in three.
Despite her record 108 World Cup wins and 15 world championship medals, including eight golds, she only has three Olympic medals: slalom gold at the age of just 18 in Sochi, and giant slalom gold and combined silver in Pyeongchang.
Now in Cortina she has missed out on a medal in the Alpine combined and the giant slalom. The combined – in which she raced in her favourite discipline, slalom – was a surprise. But while the GS result will be another bitter disappointment, it is a testament to her that she even started at all.
In November 2024 Shiffrin suffered a serious puncture wound to her abdomen and severe muscle trauma in a giant slalom race in Killington, Vermont. She led after the first run and was chasing a century of World Cup wins when she lost control, slipped into a gate, and flipped over her skis before crashing into the protective fence.
She returned to racing in January 2025, but was wary coming back to giant slalom after the trauma of her injury. She suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and stated openly that she thought she may never get to this level in GS again, let alone compete in it at the Olympics. She has not won a giant slalom race since that crash.
A little over a year on from that violent injury, though, Shiffrin is back at the top, ranked inside the world’s top seven in the discipline again. Even making the start line is an impressive feat, although like her teammate and fellow great Lindsey Vonn in the downhill, she is unlikely to see it that way.
Her coaches set this course on the Olympia delle Tofane piste but that couldn’t help her claw back precious milliseconds. Starting 24th, she made a brilliant start but was late into a turn halfway down, beginning to shed time rapidly, and more late entrances cost her further.
She crossed the line in provisional sixth, 0.25 seconds on then-leader Lara Della Mea. She waved to the crowd, but dropped her head back. Disappointed again.
Shiffrin has one more chance to seal a medal at this Olympics, in Thursday’s slalom event, in which she is the overwhelming favourite. 71 of her World Cup wins have come in the discipline and she has won seven of the eight slalom World Cups this season.
Brignone was the last of the top-ranked skiers to go on the second run on Sunday and more than rose to the occasion, flying down the piste in the blinding Cortina sunshine to seal her second gold of this Games – less than a year after suffering multiple leg fractures in a serious crash.
She only returned to skiing this January, but at 35 is finding new levels of brilliance.
The Italian’s fairytale home Olympics continued as she finished 0.62 seconds ahead of joint silver medallists Sara Hector of Sweden – the champion in Beijing – and Thea Louise Stjernesund of Norway, who both bowed down to her in the finish area before running over to embrace her.
