{"id":793137,"date":"2019-02-16T21:52:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T04:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/mikaela-shiffrin-skis-through-her-sickness-to-sweetest-win-of-career\/"},"modified":"2019-02-16T21:52:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T04:52:00","slug":"mikaela-shiffrin-skis-through-her-sickness-to-sweetest-win-of-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/mikaela-shiffrin-skis-through-her-sickness-to-sweetest-win-of-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikaela Shiffrin skis through her sickness to \u2018sweetest\u2019 win of career"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Mikaela Shiffrin shows her gold medal of the women’s slalom at the alpine ski World Championships in Are, Sweden on Saturday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ARE, Sweden \u2014 Mikaela Shiffrin couldn\u2019t breathe. She felt like she was suffocating. She had no energy, and self-doubt had set in.<\/p>\n

Then came some words of encouragement from her coaches: \u201cThe reality is you have to push for 60 seconds. Everything else doesn\u2019t matter. Just 60 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were the sweetest 60 seconds of her career.<\/p>\n

Fighting off a lung infection, Shiffrin delivered her most resilient performance yet to capture the slalom title at the world championships and become the first Alpine skier \u2014 male or female \u2014 to win the same event at four straight worlds.<\/p>\n

The drama added another layer of legend around a 23-year-old American who is on course to be the greatest skier of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just not feeling very good for the whole day,\u201d she said, her voice noticeably croaky, \u201cexcept for the 60 seconds that it mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

After crossing the line, she collapsed to the snow for a while. She roused herself to get up only because she thought she was being disrespectful to the two skiers yet to come down.<\/p>\n

First it was Anna Swenn Larsson, who finished 0.58 seconds behind Shiffrin to take silver. Then came first-run leader Wendy Holdener, who went round a few gates before going off the course.<\/p>\n

Just like that, it was official: Shiffrin was a world champion for the fifth time \u2014 and the second time at these championships after winning the super-G on the opening day of competition in Are.<\/p>\n

She barely had any energy to celebrate.<\/p>\n

\u201cA testament to her grittiness,\u201d Shiffrin\u2019s coach, Jeff Lackie, told The Associated Press, \u201cand what she was able to accomplish in that second run was nothing short of incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shiffrin was suffering with a chest cold, her team said, and her energy levels were low. She watched her rivals \u2014 Holdener, Swenn Larsson, eventual bronze-medalist Petra Vlhova \u2014 in the first run and thought: \u201cI don\u2019t know how much more I have to give, how much more I can push.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said her illness might have taken away any nerves before the second leg, which \u2014 hours after the race \u2014 was just a blur to her. The most vivid memory she had was from halfway down the course, when she felt she \u201cran out of oxygen.\u201d In fact, despite everything, the second run was close to perfection. It was the fastest by 0.62 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnically,\u201d said Livio Magoni, Vlhova\u2019s coach, \u201cit\u2019s worth watching over and over again to learn from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tears flowed from Shiffrin after Swenn Larsson came down the hill to win Sweden its first medal of these championships. She cried at the flower ceremony, and again in media interviews afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure why I was crying quite a lot more than I usually do, and it\u2019s quite embarrassing,\u201d Shiffrin said. \u201cBut it is emotional for a lot of reasons. I can\u2019t explain every reason right now. It would take much too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, she walks away from the championships tied with Ted Ligety as the American with the most gold medals at the worlds. In doing so, she moved ahead of Miller, another of her childhood idols.<\/p>\n

With seven medals at the worlds, she is only one off the American record held by Vonn. Shiffrin has seven gold medals at the worlds and Olympics, and is up to 56 victories on the World Cup circuit \u2014 26 behind Vonn and 30 off the all-time record of Ingemar Stenmark.<\/p>\n

A reminder that Shiffrin is only 23, not yet considered at her peak .<\/p>\n

After accepting a cough sweet to soothe her throat, Shiffrin was asked what made the unprecedented win in the slalom so memorable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the moments that it counted, my team and I were able to focus on the true task and the reason we\u2019re here,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s something special.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mikaela Shiffrin shows her gold medal of the women’s slalom at the alpine ski World Championships in Are, Sweden on Saturday. ARE, Sweden \u2014 Mikaela Shiffrin couldn\u2019t breathe. She felt like she was suffocating. She had no energy, and self-doubt had set in. Then came some words of encouragement from her coaches: \u201cThe reality is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 17:43:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}