SUN VALLEY, Idaho (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin started the World Cup slalom season with a win. She closed it out the exact same way.

In between, a serious crash in the giant slalom, a difficult recovery, struggles with confidence, battles with post-traumatic stress disorder and finally rediscovering that winning form.

“This one has been quite a roller coaster,” Shiffrin said of her season. “There’s been some really thrilling moments and some moments where I questioned if I should even be in the sport.”

Shiffrin smoothly navigated a bumpy and rut-filled course to easily win the women’s slalom Thursday at the World Cup finals.

No playing it safe for the American ski racing standout, either. The first-run leader, Shiffrin found another burst to finish in a combined time of 1 minute, 45.92 seconds and beat Lena Duerr of Germany by 1.13 seconds. Andreja Slokar of Slovenia took third.

Shiffrin glided through the course at Sun Valley with a large crowd cheering her through every gate.

Indeed, she heard them.

“Super helpful, but it’s also a level of pressure,” Shiffrin explained. “You can feel the energy and that’s really exciting, but you can also hear the kids or whoever it is lining the side of the course saying, ‘Come on Mikaela, you’ve got this. We want to see it.’ Everybody’s so positive.

“But sometimes I’m like, ‘Just put it out of your mind. Put it away.’ In the end, I was standing in the start gate and I was thinking, ‘Do I ski this, somehow, like get to the finish and get valuable points, or do I take some risk?’ … I heard everybody cheering and was like, ‘All right, (expletive) it.’”

It was an injury-marred season for Shiffrin, who competed in only the slalom at finals. The 30-year-old Shiffrin has missed four slalom races this season and that’s kept her from retaining her title in the discipline. She still finished in fourth place in the slalom standings.

Croatian ski racer Zrinka Ljutic was 10th in Thursday’s race — good enough to put the finishing touches on capturing the season-long slalom title. She won over Katharina Liensberger of Austria, with Camille Rast of Switzerland taking third.

The 21-year-old Ljutic earned last season’s “rising star” award and is showing that talent ahead of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.

“It feels amazing,” Ljutic said of the slalom title. “It’s everything I’ve worked for, really, in my life.”

U.S. skier Paula Moltzan had a fast second run Thursday — finishing sixth — two days after a crash in the giant slalom. She wore a bandage on her chin.

The women’s World Cup overall race saw Italy’s Federica Brignone take first (1,594 points), Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami second (1,272) and Brignone’s teammate Sofia Goggia finish third (931). The three didn’t race on Thursday.

For Shiffrin, a painful season drew to a close. She’s worked her way back from a serious giant slalom crash in Killington, Vermont, in late November, where she suffered a deep puncture wound that caused severe trauma to her oblique muscles. The crash led to emotional trauma, too, leaving her with PTSD in the GS.

But she’s in a better frame of mind ahead of the Olympics.

“This race and finishing with a good mentality, good intensity and really strong skiing, that’s going to help me for the full preparation,” Shiffrin said. “You get a taste of why we train so hard. That makes it a little bit easier to dive into the next months with a good attitude.”

This season included a memorable milestone for Shiffrin when she won her 100th World Cup race during a slalom in Italy on Feb. 23.

On Thursday, Shiffrin picked up World Cup win No. 101. Fittingly, there were kids in the crowd dressed in puppy outfits — a nod to Disney’s “101 Dalmatians.”

“I saw them on the jumbotron on the first run. I was like, ‘That’s so clever, but hopefully I don’t mess it up,’” Shiffrin said with a laugh.

She wouldn’t. Not even as the last women’s racer on a deteriorating course. Then again, she trains on courses with similar conditions for moments just like this.

“We all just went, ‘Wow,’” said Shiffrin’s coach, Karin Harjo, of the the final run as the racer reached the 500-point mark, which gives her better starting positions next season.

When she takes the slalom course, any slalom course, Shiffrin’s been tough to beat. She’s won four of the six World Cup slalom races she’s been in this season.

Over her career, Shiffrin has finished first, second or third in a World Cup slalom race in 89 of 118 starts, which is a 75.4% podium rate. She’s won slalom 64 times — a 54.2% victory rate.

“Her skiing is out of this world,” Ljutic said. “Coming back from this injury, this was a master class. I definitely have a lot to work on coming into next season.”

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The tears suddenly began to form. That was her dad’s favorite tune.

These days, the American ski racing standout has been thinking a lot about her father, Jeff Shiffrin. He died five years ago in a home accident.

Her father helped nurture her love of skiing. He offered tips and suggestions, usually taking in her races off to the side and with a camera dangling from a strap around his neck.

Mikaela Shiffrin can’t help wonder what he would’ve thought of her recently earning World Cup win No. 100.

“I just wish,” she said, “I could ask him.”

This season has been so difficult for Shiffrin, a painful season that winds down Thursday after her slalom race at the World Cup finals. The two-time Olympic champion continues to work her way back from a crash during the giant slalom in Killington, Vermont, in November. She suffered a deep puncture wound that caused severe trauma to her oblique muscles. It caused emotional trauma, too, leaving her with post-traumatic stress disorder in the GS.

Next season, there’s the pressure of the Milan-Cortina Olympics. Shiffrin struggled at the 2022 Beijing Games and didn’t medal over five individual events.

Dad could’ve been a huge help in managing all of these emotions.

Jeff Shiffrin died at age 65 on Feb. 2, 2020, in an accident at the family home in Colorado. He was an anesthesiologist who leaned on his background in clinical science to help Mikaela develop original training methods and unique workout programs. What he instilled in her was focus and to remain present in any moment.

On race days, he pretty much stayed in the background, sometimes even climbing trees adjacent to a race hill to catch a glimpse of her flying through a course. Her father, with his familiar bushy mustache, was always there for suggestions, video breakdown and, of course, hugs.

“This season I’ve been definitely thinking about him a lot,” Mikaela Shiffrin said in an interview with The Associated Press. “A lot of it has been more emotional and I think more sad than it’s been in a while, actually. I’m sure that’s tied to some of the other experiences I’ve had this year.”

She’s not quite sure what he would’ve thought of her winning her 100th World Cup race during a slalom in Sestriere, Italy, on Feb. 23.

“One of the worst things for me is when people say he would have been proud,” Shiffrin said. “I’m like, ‘Well, we don’t know that. Maybe he would have told me to move on from ski racing now. Go find something else to do.’

“But I imagine he would have been sort of like the awkward, giggly dad proud. If anyone asked him, he might have brushed it off and been like, ‘We’re just trying to ski well.’”

She’s got her mom and brother for support. Her fiance, Norwegian standout Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, too.

She leans on them — and will lean on them as the Olympics approach. Because the Beijing Games will be mentioned often to Shiffrin. Everything just felt different, including the venue and the lack of fans because of the pandemic to create any sort of buzz.

This version of the Winter Games takes place at a well-known venue in Cortina, on a well-known hill where Shiffrin won a World Cup super-G race in 2019 and a world championship Alpine combined gold medal in 2021.

“In many ways, Cortina is going to be — it might actually feel like my first Olympics in a place where Alpine skiing doesn’t feel like an afterthought,” said Shiffrin, who won the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Games and the GS gold four years later in Pyeongchang.

She figures to have company in the spotlight, too, with Lindsey Vonn back on the scene. The 40-year-old Vonn recently completed her comeback season after a partial knee replacement with a second-place showing at the World Cup finals in the super-G.

“Watching her ski that way (Sunday) with really challenging conditions … was really impressive,” the 30-year-old Shiffrin said. “I thought her skiing was really powerful.”

On Thursday, no matter how she finishes, Shiffrin will be relinquishing her overall slalom title after winning the discipline’s crystal globe the past two seasons. She currently is sixth in the season-long slalom standings (she missed four slalom races after her crash), with a chance to finish second or third. Zrinka Ljutic Croatia leads with three other racers within striking distance for the crown.

“There’s still a level of focus and intensity that I really want to bring to the slalom,” Shiffrin said. “I also want to ski my best. For whatever is in front of me, I want to be able to handle it with my best game, my best turns.”

That’s a mindset her dad helped instill.

Lately, little things have been reminding her of him. Like that Simon song.

“That song (coming on at the celebration), it was a gift for me,” Shiffrin said. “I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to start bawling.’ Certain music makes me think of him. Certain clothing makes me think of him. Those memories come back in flashes and at very unexpected times.”

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For her, as she deals with post-traumatic stress disorder in the discipline, that’s major progress.

While the other racers compete in the GS on Tuesday at World Cup finals in Sun Valley, Shiffrin plans to squeeze in some training in the slalom. It will be the American standout’s only event of the weeklong finals after not qualifying in giant slalom.

The two-time Olympic champion revealed last month that she’s suffering from PTSD after falling in the GS on Nov. 30 in Killington, Vermont. In the crash, something punctured Shiffrin’s side and caused severe trauma to her oblique muscles.

Shiffrin skipped the giant slalom at world championships and has raced the discipline three times since, with her best showing 25th place.

But she’s back to turning in fast sections at practice in the GS, a discipline that blends speed and technical skill.

“Training is going well. It’s actually super positive. Training has been improving day-by-day,” Shiffrin said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday night before signing autographs for fans. “I’m just trying to get back to the confidence that I was skiing with in Killington when the crash happened. That would be a big goal.”

On that day, Shiffrin was leading after the first run of the GS as she charged after her 100th World Cup win. The finish line was in sight on her final run, when she lost an edge and slid into a gate, flipping head over skis.

The all-time winningest Alpine World Cup ski racer then slammed into another gate before coming to a stop in the protective fencing. She still doesn’t know what led to the puncture wound.

To get back in the starting gate, she’s been working with a psychologist. Leading into world championships and the GS, she checked most of the boxes for PTSD symptoms. A few weeks later in Are, Sweden, she checked fewer.

“My processing speed and the mind-body connection has come back in a great way,” explained Shiffrin, who earned her 100th World Cup win last month in Italy. “But every now and then I’ll still have the sort of intrusive images or thoughts cross my mind of crashing or the pain. Normally, it’s in the start gate. If I’m starting to get a little bit tired in a session, I just imagine everything that could go wrong and it’s kind of an intense reaction.

“But it happens so much less often now. It does feel very true that simply exposure to doing the thing that’s pretty uncomfortable is helpful.”

Following her slalom training session Tuesday, Shiffrin will be watching as New Zealand’s Alice Robinson tries to hold off Italy’s Federica Brignone for the crystal globe in the giant slalom.

The 30-year-old Shiffrin can see glimpses of her GS form returning. She won an Olympic gold medal in the discipline at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games and 22 of her 100 World Cup victories have come in giant slalom.

“Some of my turns are competitive with the fastest in the world,” said Shiffrin, whose slalom race is Thursday. “But putting that together for a minute and 10-second GS run — that just takes time and repetition. We’ll need to try to get some days this summer with long course sets, with a lot of variation of course sets, variation of conditions. I don’t doubt that I can get to that competitive level again.

“I think a lot of my skiing is already there.”

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Vonn found her vintage form while flying down the twisting and steep Challenger course at the World Cup finals. The American pumped her ski poles after glancing at the scoreboard as the large crowd roared.

This was Vonn’s first World Cup podium spot since March 15, 2018, when she finished third in a super-G in Are, Sweden. Vonn came out of retirement this season after a partial knee replacement.

It was Vonn’s 138th career World Cup podium in her 408th World Cup start. She is within one of tying the most starts by a female racer, a mark held by Renate Goetschl of Austria.

Gut-Behrami finished in a time of 1 minute, 12.35 seconds — edging Vonn by 1.29 seconds — to earn the season-long super-G crystal globe by overtaking Italian racer Federica Brignone. Gut-Behrami trailed by five points heading into Sunday’s race. Gut-Behrami found plenty of speed and took some calculated risks to glide through the course. Brignone finished third, 1.33 seconds behind the time of Gut-Behrami.

The final season-long super-G standings ended up Gut-Behrami, Brignone and Sofia Goggia of Italy.

On Saturday, Brignone officially clinched the downhill discipline after the race was canceled, along with the the overall title.

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Racing through steadily falling snow with a first-run lead, Shiffrin was only 25th-fastest in the second run to finish in third place, 0.19 seconds behind surprise winner Katharina Truppe.

Katharina Liensberger placed second, trailing 0.05 behind her Austria teammate, whose first career World Cup win was earned at age 29.

“Katharina Day!” Shiffrin said in the finish area as she hugged the two racers who beat her.

“I actually feel pretty good about it,” Shiffrin said of her fifth slalom race in her comeback from a serious crash in November. “I maybe wasn’t always perfect but I was pushing really hard.”

Shiffrin’s 156th top-3 result in her World Cup career broke a tie with Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark. Shiffrin also took the all-time wins record from Stenmark and now has 100 to his 86.

Truppe now has one from her 181st World Cup start, though she has three championship medals including the team event gold at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

“It’s just: ‘Wow.’ I’m a little bit speechless,” said Truppe, who had been sixth-fastest in the morning run, trailing Shiffrin by 0.91. “First victory, it’s crazy. I will enjoy it and soak up all this emotion.”

Both Truppe and Shiffrin are aged 29 and won slalom bronze medals at the junior world championships though their careers were on different trajectories. Shiffrin won her medal aged 15 in 2011 and already had two World Cup slalom titles and Olympic gold before Truppe got her junior worlds medal in 2015.

Shiffrin needed to win Sunday to earn 100 race points and stay in contention — though only just – for a ninth career season-long slalom title. She missed four slalom races while recovering from her physical and psychological injuries.

“I’m still trying to get the repetition back. I just have to keep practicing it,” she said.

With Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhova skipping the entire season to recover from a knee injury, the door opened for a new World Cup title winner.

The World Cup season-ending last slalom is at Sun Valley, Idaho, on March 27 with four skiers ahead of Shiffrin and within 100 points of the lead to lift the crystal globe trophy.

Title-chasing contenders Zrinka Ljutic and Camille Rast, the world championships gold medalist last month, both were below their best form Sunday and placed 10th and 11th, respectively.

Ahead of going to the United States, the 21-year-old Ljutic leads Rast in the slalom standings by 41 points and will win the title with a top-three result. Liensberger, the 2021 champion, and Rast’s Swiss teammate Wendy Holdener also could win.

Shiffrin said she plans to train in Europe before the trip across seven time zones, to the Idaho resort that last staged World Cup races in 1977.

“There’s certainly some travel challenges. It’s a really long distance,” she said. “I guess one more race this season for me but I’m looking forward to it.”

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Brignone was fastest in both runs of a World Cup giant slalom Saturday to score a dominating victory and take another big step toward a second career overall title.

Shiffrin failed to finish in the first run, going out when she skied wide after approaching a right-hand turn too fast.

Brignone raced last in the afternoon as the first-run leader and extended her margin to 1.36 seconds over Alice Robinson. Lara Colturi was third, trailing Brignone by 1.43.

Despite holding a huge lead, the Italian star pushed for more speed and almost crashed within sight of the finish when she was launched up with both skis off the snow.

“It was a bit slippery. Then I had that mistake and I said, ‘Oh no, this is over,’” she said.

Brignone has won every giant slalom race she has completed this season, including a world championships gold medal last month. She failed to finish in three World Cup races.

Robinson’s consistent results means she still leads Brignone in the giant slalom standings by 20 points with one race left on March 25 at Sun Valley, Idaho.

“It’s an amazing fight,” Brignone said of her rival from New Zealand. “She has been on the podium every race and she’s an amazing skier.”

Brignone is racing toward a second overall World Cup title at age 34.

With 100 points earned for Saturday’s win, she leads by 322 over Lara Gut-Behrami, the defending champion, who placed ninth.

Brignone’s 36th career World Cup race win also was her 21st since turning 30, a record in the women’s World Cup. Downhill great Lindsey Vonn has 15 wins since her 30th birthday and Gut-Behrami has 12.

Sofia Goggia has four wins in her 30s and still no podium result in giant slalom for seven years. Starting the second run in second place, Goggia was on track to set the fastest time when she came to a stop after taking too much speed through a turn.

Shiffrin has now started three giant slaloms since suffering a deep puncture wound in her stomach during a GS crash in Killington, Vermont more than three months ago. Her results have been a 25th place, failing to qualify for a second run and now a “did not finish.”

The United States star has returned to top form in slalom, which is raced Sunday. She got her record-extending 100th career World Cup win in a slalom two weeks ago.

Brignone and Gut-Behrami both skip racing in slalom.

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Less than 14 years after her debut race as a 16-year-old in March 2011, the American won a slalom in Italy on Sunday to get her tally of victories to three digits.

No other skier, male or female, has ever won more than 86 races.

Shiffrin has racked up 63 wins in slalom, 22 in giant slaloms, 5 in super-G, 4 in downhill, 1 in Alpine combined and 5 in parallel races.

The two-time Olympic champion completed her century of World Cup victories in 278 starts for a whopping win rate of 36%.

“I wasn’t planning to win”

Here is a look at 10 of Shiffrin’s most notable World Cup victories.

— No. 1: Slalom in Are, Sweden on Dec. 12, 2012

In her 24th World Cup start and early in her first full season on the circuit, Shiffrin lands her maiden victory in a night race. At 17, she becomes the second-youngest American ever to win a World Cup race, after Judy Nagel.

— No. 4: Slalom in Lenzerheide, Switzerland on March 16, 2013

Making up a big opening-run deficit of 1.17 seconds for a come-from-behind win in the season-ending slalom sees Shiffrin edge out overall champion Tina Maze in the final slalom standings. Shiffrin gets her first crystal globe, a day after her 18th birthday.

— No. 16: Slalom in Aspen, Colorado on Nov. 28, 2015

Shiffrin crushes the field to win a race in her native Colorado by 3.07 seconds, still the biggest-ever winning margin in a women’s World Cup slalom. “I don’t know if the stars will ever align like that again,” she says. They almost do the next day, when Shiffrin wins another slalom by 2.65 seconds.

— Nos. 24-26: Two giant slaloms, one slalom in Semmering, Austria on Dec. 27-29, 2016

Three races on three consecutive days between Christmas and New Year — and Shiffrin wins them all. This achievement, though, is not a one-off. When the Austrian resort hosts three races in three days again in 2022, Shiffrin just does it all again.

— No. 33: Downhill in Lake Louise, Alberta on Dec. 2, 2017

After starting as a tech specialist, Shiffrin ventures into speed events in late 2016 on the way to her first overall title. In only her third downhill start a year later, she gets her first podium, only to back it up with her maiden downhill victory the next day. “I wasn’t planning to win,” she says, just “do my best and see what happened.”

“It’s not over yet, which is even more ridiculous”

— No. 46: Super-G in Lake Louise on Dec. 2, 2018

A year to the day after her first downhill triumph, Shiffrin wins a super-G and becomes the only skier, male or female, with wins in all six Alpine disciplines. Shiffrin goes on to win 17 races that season; no other skier has ever won more than 14 in a single World Cup campaign.

— No. 67: Giant slalom in Courchevel, France on Dec. 14, 2020

What might seem like just another GS win is one of her most meaningful victories — the first since the death of her father, Jeff Shiffrin, 10 months earlier. “I definitely didn’t ski alone today. I had a lot of strength from a lot of people. It’s a bit bittersweet,” Shiffrin says after the race.

— No. 73: Slalom in Schladming, Austria on Jan. 11, 2022

Beating her long-term rival Petra Vlhova, Shiffrin adds slalom victory No. 47 to her tally, more than any other skier, male or female, has ever won in a single discipline. The previous best mark — 46 GS wins by Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark — stood for 33 years.

— No. 87: Slalom in Are on March 11, 2023

Less than seven weeks after overtaking Lindsey Vonn as the winningest female ski racer with her career win 83, Shiffrin sets the outright record. The best mark of 86 wins seemed unbeatable when Stenmark set it 34 years earlier, but Shiffrin gets win No. 87 — in a race held in Stenmark’s home country. “It’s pretty hard to describe — and it’s not over yet, which is even more ridiculous,” Shiffrin says.

— No. 100: Slalom in Sestriere, Italy on Feb. 23, 2025

Even before Shiffrin was to beat his record of 86 wins, Stenmark predicted in an AP interview in early 2023 that the American “can win more than 100.” Two years later, Shiffrin reaches the milestone in what is her first World Cup victory after a two-month injury break. She sustained an abdominal injury in a GS crash at her home race in Killington, Vermont in November, when she led in the second run and seemed on course for win No. 100.

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Shiffrin’s record-extending 100th career World Cup race win Sunday fulfilled a quest put on hold by a serious crash in November.

Back to racing in her favored slalom event, Shiffrin kept and added to her first-run lead to finish 0.61 seconds ahead of Zrinka Ljutic. Shiffrin’s U.S. teammate Paula Moltzan was third, 0.64 back.

The 29-year-old Shiffrin also tied an all-time World Cup record for men and women, as her 155th career top-3 finish on the podium matched Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark.

Shiffrin crossed the finish line and took a long look at the scoreboard showing her victory. She then looked again over her left shoulder with an expression of amazement.

She lay down on the snow with her right hand to her helmet, and was helped to her feet by Moltzan who hugged her.

Shiffrin cried at first when she was asked in a post-race interview what it meant after all she had been through in the past few months.

“Everyone had been so nice and so supportive. I am so grateful, thank you,” she said.

Shiffrin’s 99th win was earned exactly three months ago in a slalom at Gurgl, Austria.

No. 100 had been within clear sight one week later when Shriffin crashed out of a giant slalom at Killington, Vermont, while racing fast as the first-run leader.

The injuries she suffered in a tumbling fall — severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound — sidelined her for several weeks and left “PTSD-like” anxiety about racing giant slalom.

In two giant slaloms at Sestriere, she placed 25th Friday and on Saturday finished outside the top-30 fastest racers in the first run for the first time since 2012.

Shiffrin showed no sign of nerves with an aggressive second run to victory, a full half-second faster than Ljutic who is a three-time winner this season in World Cup slaloms.

“A lot of things had to go right in my direction for this to happen. But I did something right, too,” a tearful Shiffrin said.

Shiffrin and Stenmark are the two greatest record setters in the World Cup’s 58-year history.

“She’s much better than I was. You cannot compare,” Stenmark said in an interview with The Associated Press two years ago.

His record of 86 World Cup wins was broken by Shiffrin in March 2023, almost 34 years after his last win. Stenmark’s 86th win — a giant slalom at Aspen, Colorado in February 1989 — also was his 155th and last podium result.

Shiffrin matched Stenmark’s tally of top-3 results in six fewer starts. Sunday was her 278th World Cup race and Stenmark’s last podium was in his 284th, according to the ski-db.com site.

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In just her second GS race Saturday three months after a serious crash, Shiffrin did not qualify for a second run for the first time since 2012 by placing outside the top 30.

Shiffrin finished 2.50 seconds off the first-run lead set by Alice Robinson with more than 30 faster racers ahead of her who advance to the second run in the afternoon.

Shiffrin had finished 25th in Brignone’s victory Friday in her first giant slalom since suffering severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound during a GS crash in Killington, Vermont in November when she was within sight of a 100th career win.

Brignone made it back-to-back wins on home snow Saturday, nine days after taking gold in giant slalom at the world championships in Saalbach, Austria.

The 34-year-old Italian was exceptional in the second run to extend her lead in the overall World Cup standings in pursuit of a second career title.

“I felt the crowd all over the slope cheering for me. It was an incredible feeling,” said Brignone, who now has 16 career wins in World Cup giant slaloms.

Brignone finished 0.77 ahead of Lara Gut-Behrami, who fell further behind in second place in the overall standings. Worlds silver medalist Robinson ended third, 0.79 behind Brignone, though still leads the season-long giant slalom standings.

Shiffrin has a record 22 career World Cup wins in giant slalom, plus gold medals at the 2018 Olympics and 2023 worlds, yet raced cautiously Saturday and wore an expression of resignation on seeing her time. The 14 previous top-ranked racers had all been between 1.4 and 2.5 seconds faster.

The previous race that Shiffrin completed a first run in slalom or giant slalom outside the top-30 times was in October 2012 at the season-opening GS at Soelden, Austria. Then, a 17-year-old Shiffrin wearing bib No. 41 had the 31st fastest time.

Shiffrin’s lack of recent racing meant on Saturday the bib number 15 she wore was the highest in a World Cup giant slalom for more than eight years. She won that December 2016 race wearing No. 15 at Semmering, Austria.

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Mikaela Shiffrin’s array of international fans who gathered in the Austrian Alps may have entertained the thought of witnessing those achievements when the American stood third after the opening run Saturday, waving American flags and holding up signs dedicated to the most successful skier of all time.

Shiffrin herself, though, never quite expected much of anything beyond where she ultimately finished, fifth, in only her second full slalom race since she suffered severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound that left her insides draining out of the side of her abdomen during a crash in a giant slalom in Killington, Vermont, 10 weeks ago.

“Today was just right in line with my expectations,” Shiffrin said. “It’s a strange place to be returning from surgery eight weeks ago, from laying in bed with a drainage tube six weeks ago, to return mid-season in the middle of world championships where everybody is talking about the medals and all the other athletes are fighting and on their top form. And I’m trying to figure out where I even stand in the sport.”

While Shiffrin did pair with Breezy Johnson to win a gold in the new team combined event at these worlds, she also withdrew from defending her giant slalom title because of “PTSD-eque” fears related to her fall in Killington.

She said it’s all been “maybe one of the biggest learning experiences of my career.”

The combined gold was Shiffrin’s 15th career medal at worlds, matching the record set by German skier Christl Cranz in the 1930s. Now she’ll have to wait until the next worlds in Crans Montana, Switzerland, in two years to try and stand alone as the most decorated skier in the competition’s history.

Shiffrin had medaled in all six of her previous slalom races at the worlds, starting as a 17-year-old in 2013 when she won the first of four consecutive golds. Then she took bronze in 2021 and silver in 2023.

Now that the slalom streak is over, Shiffrin can look back and admire how special it was — rising Croatian talent Zrinka Ljutic called it “alien” — with the realization that it didn’t end because she’s no longer capable of dominating in slalom; it ended only because she’s been slowed by the two most serious crashes of her career the last two seasons.

“Yeah, I mean, anything can go wrong. And sometimes it feels like everything does go wrong. But looking back at the course of my career, just to this point — and there’s plenty more to come — it’s incredible to think about everything that my team has done … and that we’ve done together to have such consistency,” Shiffrin said.

Besides her crash in Killington, Shiffrin also hit the safety nets at high speed during a downhill last season in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, on the course that will host next year’s Milan-Cortina Olympics.

“The last two years have been the biggest proof to the world about how much can go wrong — even when you think you’re doing everything right,” Shiffrin said. “It makes it a little bit scary to move forward because everything feels so unknown. But I guess that’s the mentality we take. And I’m going to try to become comfortable with that unknown feeling.”

Moltzan one spot ahead of Shiffrin

Shiffrin still finished only five hundredths of a second off the podium — or from earning a medal. Paula Moltzan, her American teammate, came even closer, finishing fourth two hundredths off the podium in a race won by Swiss skier Camille Rast.

Moltzan won a bronze in giant slalom and also finished fourth with the U.S. squad in the mixed team parallel event and combined with partner Lauren Macuga.

“My worst is fourth, so it’s OK,” Moltzan said. “I’m proud of myself. World champs is a big stage. I competed in the first event and the last event almost. And it’s been a long two weeks, but I’m happy with it.”

The 30-year-old Moltzan is less than a year older than Shiffrin, so has witnessed first-hand almost the entirety of her more accomplished teammate’s career.

“When you’ve been out for two months, it’s hard to have confidence,” Moltzan said. “(Rast) has got momentum and Mikaela is just kind of starting back up. I think by the end of the season you’ll maybe see her top speed again.”

Shiffrin wants to race GS next weekend

With the World Cup circuit — skiing’s regular season — starting back up again next weekend, Shiffrin plans to race in the two giant slaloms and a slalom in Sestriere, Italy. Her next win will be a record-extending No. 100.

“I kind of need to start racing GS in order to keep my start list (number) somewhat reasonable,” Shiffrin said. “But I think I can get to the point that my skiing is good enough that I can race without it being dangerous.”

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

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