Mikaela Shiffrinhas found her way back to the podium in giant slalom.
Just in time for the Milano Cortina Olympics.
Shiffrin made her first GS podium since the November 2024 crash that left her with a puncture wound and PTSD on Saturday, Jan. 24, finishing third in the World Cup in Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic. This was the final GS race before the Winter Games next month.
Shiffrin beamed and pumped her skis when she was announced as the bronze medalist. And no wonder. It's been a long way back.
Shiffrin was leading the GS in Killington, Vermont, when she lost her balance in the second run and fell. As she skidded across the hill, something "stabbed" her in her right obliques. Though she avoided serious damage — the wound barely missed her colon — she would miss the next two months as she recovered and regained her strength.
The physical wound was not the only damage, however. She experienced PTSD symptoms when she trained GS, a fun-house effect in which her mind could visualize what she wanted to do on the course but her body was responding in slow-motion. Not only frustrating, but potentially dangerous on an icy slope at speeds up to 50 mph.
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The off-season gave Shiffrin a chance to both recover and train, and she made had steady progress this season, with top-five finishes in her last two races. But the podium eluded her until Saturday.
Spindleruv Mlyn is a place Shiffrin knows well. It's where she made her World Cup debut, in 2011, and she'd been third in her last two GS races there.
Shiffrin looked comfortable and in control in both of her runs, even posting the fastest time of the field in the third sector of the second run. Her time of 2:24.09 was 0.23 seconds behind Sweden's Sara Hector, and just 0.05 behind teammate Paula Moltzan.
Moltzan and Shiffrin had the fastest times in the second run, but Hector had built up enough of a lead after the first run to stay in front of them.
Still, Shiffrin was delighted with the finish, her first podium in a GS race since Jan. 20, 2024. She smiled and laughed with Moltzan and Hector as they waited for the medals ceremony, and grinned as she climbed onto the podium.
Back at last.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Mikaela Shiffrin makes first giant slalom podium since 2024 crash
