Proud Shiffrin ends drought, dominates slalom

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy -- With her first slalom run Wednesday, Mikaela Shiffrin reminded the world she is the all-time greatest in the event. With her second run, she clinched gold.

"The wonderful thing about this day was that I felt proud before it happened," Shiffrin said after Wednesday's race, which gave her a second career slalom gold medal. "We took that pride into the day. That was wonderful."

Shiffrin skied impeccably in both runs to win by 1.50 seconds over Camille Rast of Switzerland, the third-largest margin of victory in a women's Olympic slalom. Anna Swenn-Larsson of Sweden took bronze.

Shiffrin is now one of just a handful of Alpine skiers to win three career Olympic gold medals and the only American ever to do so.

"I've been very grateful to the team, to my coaches and everybody around me who helped me focus on the thing that's the most meaningful, which is strong skiing, strong turns -- just proper skiing," Shiffrin said. "And that's what I got to do today."

In Sochi in 2014, Shiffrin became the youngest Olympic slalom champion at 18. Now 30, she is one of the oldest.

Of her record 108 World Cup wins, 71 have come in slalom, more than any skier in any discipline. She has won seven of eight World Cup races this season and already clinched a ninth slalom Crystal Globe.

Yet until she crossed the finish line Wednesday, Shiffrin had been dogged by talk of her Olympic drought dating back to the start of the 2022 Beijing Games, where she raced six events and failed to medal in any. People questioned if the expectations and pressure to perform on her sport's biggest stage had simply become too much. Shiffrin herself wondered if she would ever perform to her best again in an Olympic slalom race.

She answered by becoming only the second skier to win slalom gold twice at the Olympics, after Switzerland's Vreni Schneider in 1988 and 1994.

"I've cared so much about wanting everybody to know the reality and to not want to answer those questions," Shiffrin said. "I've felt that way since taking fourth in South Korea. It's been so long that I've felt tired of questions that don't feel like they line up with the reality of our sport. But in order to do this today, I needed to accept the possibility that those questions would keep coming."

By showing up in the start, Shiffrin had to accept that she might not win, and if she didn't, most people wouldn't understand why.

"The reality of our sport is you lose a lot more than you win," Shiffrin said. "The one thing that's certain is you're not going to win everything. The thing that's uncertain is whether you can win again. Every single time I cross the finish line with great skiing and a victory, it's not with confidence. I'm wondering if I can do it again."

Shiffrin said before Wednesday's race that she spent countless hours training both her body and her mind to meet the moment. In the hours between the first and second runs, she tried to take a nap and cried tears of gratitude thinking about everyone who has supported her.

"I have built this up in my own mind. I've been a bit nervous for it. I've felt pressure," she said. "I came here for the turns between the start and the finish, and today, because of the help from my team ... my family, my mom, my psychologist, I was able to show up for two runs, 47 seconds, and do something that's within me, that I know how to do."

Twelve years after her first Olympic win, Shiffrin delivered one of the great Olympic slalom performances. Afterward, she was emotional in the finish. She crouched on her skis, put her head between her knees and took a moment to herself. Then she was embraced by her fellow medalists before skiing to find her mother, Eileen, who hugged her and simply said, "Wow."

Shiffrin said she took a moment in the finish to be silent and think about her father, Jeff, who died six years ago.

"This was a moment I have dreamed about," she said. "I've also been very scared about this moment. Everything in life that you do after you lose someone you love is like a new experience. I still have so many moments where I resist this. I don't want to be in life without my dad. And maybe, today was the first time that I could accept this reality."

Rast, the reigning world champion in the slalom and the only skier to beat Shiffrin in a slalom race this season, said that after the first run she knew she was skiing for silver.

"I knew I needed to push hard to beat her," Rast said. "She just puts everything together, all the little pieces. To battle with Mikaela is not easy. Everybody wants to ski as fast as Mikaela, and she was the fastest today again."

Earlier this week, Shiffrin posted to social media a response to figure skater Ilia Malinin reacting to his loss in men's figure skating: "We feel the pain of defeat because we've tasted triumph. Heartbreak and victory live right next door. Disappointment and gratitude often coexist."

On Wednesday, she felt the joy of triumph, made all that much sweeter because she has tasted defeat.