Mikaela Shiffrin, the U.S. snowboarding star who’s additionally her sport’s most embellished athlete of all time, broke her medals drought at the 2026 Olympics on Wednesday, taking residence the gold within the ladies’s slalom.
The 30-year-old appeared surprised and visibly emotional over her triumph after finishing a clean second run within the slalom, which is her greatest occasion. She completed with a mixed time of 1:39.10, beating Switzerland’s Camille Rast, who held the second place place after two runs, by a considerable 1.5 seconds. Anna Swenn Larsson of Sweden positioned herself in third place.
Shiffrin had sped to an early lead within the occasion, ending her first slalom run with a time of 47.13 seconds and gaining a bonus over Rast, Larsson, Germany’s Lena Duerr and different rivals.
Earlier than this newest competitors, Shiffrin, the largest winner within the historical past of the World Cup circuit and a multi-time Olympian, had didn’t make the rostrum in eight straight Olympic occasions. The final time she took residence a medal was through the 2018 Winter Video games in PyeongChang, when she gained gold and silver.
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Shiffrin, a Colorado native, secured her first gold medal within the slalom occasion through the 2014 Video games in Sochi. At simply 18, it was additionally her Olympic debut.
Shiffrin’s medal drought had continued this 12 months whilst she competed within the ladies’s large slalom occasion on Sunday. Regardless of being a favourite to win, she completed the race in eleventh place, with a sequence of unpolluted runs that weren’t fairly quick sufficient to make her a critical challenger for high spots.
Italy’s Frederica Brigone earned the gold in that occasion, marking her fifth total medal and her second gold because the Milan Cortina Video games started. Shiffrin praised her efficiency after Brigone crossed the end line.
“That was, like, the best present of GS snowboarding that we have had in a extremely very long time,” Shiffin stated. “And to do it, you understand, on the Olympics the place folks even have eyes on the game. Frederica skied unimaginable. That was so cool to observe.”
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Final week, Shiffrin completed in fifteenth place within the slalom portion of the ladies’s snowboarding workforce mixed race. She and fellow U.S. snowboarding champion Breezy Johnson earned fourth place within the occasion total.
In 2024, Shiffrin crashed after dropping management whereas on the course for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics. Then final 12 months, she stated she was coping with post-traumatic stress dysfunction from one other crash, throughout which she suffered a puncture wound and extreme trauma to her indirect muscle tissue.
