Mikaela Shiffrin won her second Olympic slalom gold on Wednesday, ending an eight-year wait for an Olympic medal with a commanding victory at the Cortina d'Ampezzo Games. The American, widely regarded as the greatest alpine skier of her generation, finished 1.50 seconds clear of the field – the largest winning margin in an Olympic alpine skiing event in nearly three decades.
The victory brought her career full circle. In 2014, aged 18, she became the youngest American woman to win Olympic gold in alpine skiing. Now 30, she is the oldest. Between those triumphs she asserted her dominance on the World Cup circuit, accumulating a record 108 victories, yet Olympic success proved elusive. She failed to reach the podium in six races at the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, and a serious crash in Killington, Vermont, two years ago raised doubts about her future.
In her post-race reflections, Shiffrin spoke openly about grief and the death of her father, Jeff, in 2020. Her father, an anaesthetist and keen recreational skier, had been a guiding figure in her career, encouraging her to love skiing for its own sake. Shiffrin said winning her first Olympic gold since his death felt less like a continuation and more like starting over.
She described how the experience of loss had made everything feel like a new beginning. "Everything in life that you do after you lose someone you love is like a new experience," she said. "It's like being born again." She added that for the first time she felt able to accept the reality of her loss and take a moment to be silent with her father, rather than feeling his absence.
Shiffrin acknowledged that her journey through grief had been difficult, and that she did not experience the closeness some describe. "I feel connected to him in my thoughts and in talking about him," she said. She also reflected on the uncertainty that had marked her career, noting that life cannot be predicted, and expressed gratitude for being able to stand with a medal. "Life is crazy. I'm very grateful for that right now."
