Mikaela Shiffrin, the face of U.S. Alpine skiing, is laying everything bare — her injuries, her battles, her demons — and the comeback she’s quietly building might just reshape her legend.
🌀 “I Wasn’t Afraid — I Was Numb”
In a gripping essay for The Players’ Tribune, Shiffrin revisited the terrifying crash she endured in November at Killington, Vermont. She described how she “wasn’t afraid” during the tumble. There was only pain — a stabbing sensation so severe that she says it felt like a knife being left inside her.
The wreck left her with a deep puncture wound to her abdomen and torn oblique muscles. Mere millimeters from catastrophe, the damage nearly derailed much more than her season.
💔 The Mental Battle She Couldn’t Ski Away From
Physical scars heal — but Shiffrin admits the internal wounds lingered. In the aftermath, she began facing PTSD — vivid flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, the kind of mental strain few expect from elite athletes.
She recalled trying to ski again, only to feel disconnected — her body obeyed but her mind lagged. At times, she’d stop mid-run, not out of pain but because fragments of that crash replayed themselves in her psyche.
She even questioned her will to continue: “I kind of couldn’t care less if I ever raced again.” That raw admission caught many off guard.
🌅 The Turning Point: Getting Back to “Me”
But she kept showing up. Every start gate, every training run added a small proof: she was not done. Slowly, she felt familiar again — not just an athlete, but Mikaela. She wrote that she finally feels “like myself again.”
She credited therapy and a supportive team for helping her walk through — not around — fear. She described the recovery as more mental than physical.
🔜 What This Means for Her Olympic Push
Now, as the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games loom, Shiffrin is entering the season with cautious optimism. She’s skipping downhill entirely as she rebuilds trust in her body and her mind.
Her focus will be on slalom and giant slalom, the events she has long commanded. If super-G comes back, it will be gradual — not rushed.
Every win from now on will carry extra weight — not just for victory, but for survival. Her 101st World Cup win already came after all this wreckage and repair.
