Dominant Shiffrin strikes gold, ends medal drought

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (Reuters) – Mikaela Shiffrin won women's slalom gold, and her first Olympic medal since 2018, with a dominant performance in the final Alpine ski race of the Milano Cortina Games on Wednesday and then spoke emotionally of what it really meant to her.

"This was a moment I have dreamed about," the US great, who lost her father in February 2020, told reporters. "I've also been very scared at this moment."

The 30-year-old explained that she had imagined crossing the line and having a moment to herself "to connect with the people who can't be here.

"Everything in life that you do after you lose someone you love is like a new experience. It's like being born again. And I still have many moments where I resist this. I don't want to be in life without my dad," Shiffrin continued.

"And maybe today was the first time that I could actually accept this reality and instead of thinking I would be going in this moment without him, to take the moment to be silent with him."

RAMPED UP THE PRESSURE

Switzerland's Camille Rast, the only skier who has beaten Shiffrin on the World Cup this season, took silver and Sweden's Anna Swenn Larsson the bronze, at the age of 34, but both were far behind.

After she crossed the finish line and the crowd cheered, it took what seemed an age before Shiffrin raised her arm and a ski pole to acknowledge what she had achieved. She started to cry as she embraced her mother Eileen.

"I'm so happy to be able to do the right thing in the right moment," she explained.

The most successful World Cup skier of all time, with a record 108 wins, scorched down the first run a mighty 0.82 clear of the field and increased her lead to 1.5 seconds over Rast after two legs.

Her combined winning time was one minute 39.10 seconds.

Shiffrin was the overwhelming favourite after winning seven of eight World Cup slaloms this season but the lack of medals after two events, along with a blank in Beijing four years ago, had ramped up the pressure.

Even after the first run down the Olimpia delle Tofane piste, there remained a lingering uncertainty but Shiffrin nailed the second – her run slower only than teammate Paula Moltzan's mighty effort.

The gold was Shiffrin's career third Olympic title, adding to the slalom title she won in 2014 and the giant slalom gold from Pyeongchang in 2018, where she also took a combined silver.

Shiffrin is the first female US Alpine skier to win three golds and Wednesday's was also the second for the team in Cortina after Breezy Johnson's downhill success.

Germany's Lena Duerr was the sole skier to come within a second of her time in the first run but her hopes evaporated in a flash after she straddled the first gate out of the hut on the second run.

Sweden's Cornelia Oehlund had been third after the first run, albeit a second off the pace, but she too was unable to convert that into a medal after breaking a ski pole and failing to finish.

Shiffrin saw what happened and then put in a flawless run.

JUST HUMAN AT THE END OF THE DAY

She had spoken on Instagram earlier in the week of "narratives built on a limited understanding of what this sport truly demands", had finished fourth in the team combined with Johnson and 11th in the giant.

Had she also missed out on Wednesday there would have been plenty of critics ready to air their opinions. Shiffrin never gave them a chance.

"It's not always easy," she said. "Sometimes it feels impossible. But in the end, today, it was to take away the noise and to just be simple with it."

Rast's silver was her first Olympic medal while Swenn Larsson's bronze made her the oldest female Olympic Alpine medallist after Italian Federica Brignone, a double champion in Cortina.

"It's my last Olympics... for sure I am not here in four years, so it feels extra special to put it together today," said the Swede.