Mikaela Shiffrin is laying bare her journey in the rawest terms yet — physical recovery, mental strife, and the hard fight to reclaim joy. In a new essay, she reveals how a devastating crash last November left her battling PTSD, questioning her love for the sport, and struggling to trust her own body again. But today? She says she’s finally beginning to feel like herself again.
🩹 The Crash That Changed Everything
On November 30, 2024, during a giant slalom event in Killington, Vermont, Shiffrin’s world shifted. Leading after the first run, she lost control in her second, careened into gates, and slammed into safety nets. The result: a deep puncture wound in her abdomen and severe trauma to her oblique muscles. The damage was so close to internal organs that doctors called it a “millimeter from catastrophic.”
Since then, she’s refused to sugarcoat the fallout. She’s admitted to flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, and the haunting sensation of having a knife still inside her. In her own words: “The only thing I felt was pain.”
🧠 Fighting Back with Mind Over Muscle
Recovery for Shiffrin hasn’t just been physical — it’s required confronting mental wounds. She wrote of questioning whether she even wanted to race again, of silent struggles to summon motivation. “There were extremely low moments,” she states, moments when she recoiled from the mountain she once loved.
To heal, she leaned into therapy, consistency, and the act of returning to the start gate — over and over again. She credits those small repetitions with untangling fear from performance. “I just needed to remind myself… that the vast majority of times when I am training or racing, nothing terrible happens,” she wrote.
🏔️ Triumph Despite Turbulence
Despite missing parts of the season and sitting out certain events, she closed out 2025 on a high. At the World Cup Finals in Sun Valley, she clinched the slalom title — her 101st career win — a victory all the more powerful given the emotional terrain she’s crossed.
Earlier, she also withdrew from competing in giant slalom at the World Championships, citing mental unease and PTSD symptoms. But she still contested slalom and the new team combined event, showing that fear would not fully silence her.
