Mikaela Shiffrin won gold in the women’s slalom at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics on Wednesday, snapping her eight-year medal drought.
Four years ago, Shiffrin felt “like a joke” in Beijing. On Wednesday, she was crowned an Olympic champion once again.
“This is crazy. Life is crazy. It’s just so much effort and work and focus and preparation for two runs of 47, 50 seconds,” she told media after her gold-medal run. “To actually be in the right mentality in the right moment is nearly impossible.”
Shiffrin finished with a dominating lead of 1.5 seconds over silver medalist Camille Rast of Switzerland and 1.71 seconds over bronze medalist Anna Swenn Larsson of Sweden.
Rast told the media afterward that “to battle with (Shiffrin) is not easy.”
“Everybody wants to ski as fast as Mikaela, and she’s the fastest today, again. Keep working, keep improving, searching for solutions, and the battle will continue,” she said.
It’s the first Olympic medal of Shiffrin’s career since 2018, where she won gold in giant slalom and a silver in the alpine combined. She also won gold in her Olympic debut in 2014 in the slalom.
Shiffrin’s 2026 Olympics were off to a rough start after just missing the podium in the women’s combined with a fourth-place finish and finishing 11th in the giant slalom.
“I was happy,” she told media Wednesday of her giant slalom finish. “I came here to show the best skiing that I can do and I did that in the GS. After last year I didn’t know if I would be racing GS at all.”
Mikaela Shiffrin’s spiritual moment with her late father
Shiffrin’s father, Jeffrey Shiffrin, died six years ago, and she told Denver’s 9News that her father was on her mind Wednesday.
“My thoughts were really on my dad and wondering how to connect with him on this day is something I’ve struggled with and something that you deal with when you lose someone you love. Some people have this really immediate and deep spiritual connection, and it’s been a journey for me to try to find that,” she said.
Shiffrin wanted to take a moment to talk to her father as well as her mother, who was there in Cortina.
“I thought if this could go this way, that I would take a moment and talk to him and talk to my mom, who I would be able to see soon.”
Her mother and others who support her, however, don’t get to experience the actual moment of crossing the finish line and to feel what that’s like, she said.
“They do all the work outside of it, and that’s the one moment I wish I could give to everybody. So, I was trying to just vibe that to them, just beam it to them somehow just to communicate with everybody about how grateful I am for what they do for me every day.”
‘I feel like a joke’: Mikaela Shiffrin’s 2022 Olympics
Shiffrin’s 2022 Beijing Olympics went far from what she or anyone else expected for the three-time — now four-time — Olympic medalist.
She referenced that in her remarks to the media Wednesday.
“Everybody is experiencing something different, and I think I appreciate that, because I’ve been on the other side of it, too. Ski racing is the most incredible sport, because we the athletes stand together through heartbreak and defeat and victory.
“We’re a family, and I feel that with my competitors, with my teammates, with my peers. Every single athlete who was on the hill today showed courage just by being here.”
In Beijing, Shiffrin failed to win a medal with three DNFs in the women’s slalom, giant slalom and combined. She finished 18th in the women’s downhill and fourth in the team parallel.
Shiffrin said she felt “like a joke,” per Olympics.com.
“I feel like a joke, but maybe it made someone smile,” she said. “At a certain point it feels like you kind of have to just laugh at it. I think there’s probably people out there who are a little bit laughing at my situation and maybe not in a particularly kind way.”
After Shiffrin skied out in the slalom, the world watched her ski off to the side of the course, sit down and cry.
She later told Hoda Kotb of the “Today Show” that in the moment she “wanted to just melt off the face of the earth.”
“I just wanted to disappear, and I was like I’m going to have to ski down this hill into the finish and face humans that are judging — no matter what it’s a judgment — and I was so not prepared to do that, and I just need to take a minute because this feels so awful,” she said.
Entering the Milan Cortina Olympics, the 30-year-old from Colorado was already the all-time winningest World Cup skier with 108 wins.
On Wednesday, Shiffrin added to her legacy.
Now, Shiffrin is tied with snowboarder Shaun White and bobsledder Kaillie Humphries for the second-most gold medals won by an American at the Winter Olympics, according to USA Today.
She is also now tied with Julia Mancuso for the most Olympic medals won by an American woman in Alpine skiing with four.