‘I’m Gunning for Gold’

AFTER A DEVASTATING CRASH, THE WORLD’S MOST DECORATED ALPINE SKIER IS BACK FOR AN OLYMPIC RUN: ‘MEDALS ARE ON MY MIND’

- EILEEN FINAN,SKYLER CARUSO

Shiffrin was on the slopes as a toddlerher parents were former ski racers.

Two days after Mikaela Shiffrin was pulled down a Vermont mountain in a rescue sled after a horrific crash on a giant-slalom course, the world’s top Alpine skier was on TikTok poking fun at her injury, a punctured abdomen. “I’ve been impaled—almost just like Olaf,” Shiffrin declared, comparing herself to the Frozen snowman. Despite what she called her “small pothole,” sustained when she hit a gate and slammed into netting during a World Cup competition in November 2024, she said she hoped to be on skis again “soonish.”

Two months later she was back racing the slopes despite a wound 7 cm deep that had nearly ruptured her colon. But soon she realized her trauma reached even deeper. “Coming to terms with how much fear I have doing an event that I loved so dearly only two months ago has been soul-crushing,” Shiffrin, 30, wrote in a social media post in February, explaining she was facing “mental obstacles.” She added, “The only thing you can do is keep trying. So that’s what I will do.”