Mikaela Shiffrin’s disappointing start to 2026 Winter Games heightens the pressure on one of the greatest skiers of all time
By Dana O’Neil, CNN
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (CNN) — Sitting to the side of the finish line area at Olympia delle Tofane, Jacqueline Wiles watched Mikaela Shiffrin step into the starting gate for the final slalom run of the women’s combined and thought to herself what everyone else at the mountain was thinking.
“We were asking for a miracle,’’ Wiles said.
Two days earlier, Wiles left the mountain in tears, finishing in the single worst place in an Olympic event – fourth. Now she and her partner, Paula Moltzan, sat third, but with the single greatest slalom skier about to attack the mountain, Wiles was staring at yet another bridesmaid finish.
What happened next is what makes the Olympics so unexpectedly compelling. Shiffrin, winner of 71 slalom World Cup victories and a gold medal in the event, started slowly and skied tentatively to finish 15th out of 18 skiers, her worst place since March 17, 2012. Her time – 1:36.59 – was so far behind that, even when tagged with Breezy Johnson’s first-place downhill run, the Americans slid to fourth.
Wiles and Moltzan held on to their bronze medal, celebrating their victory. At the same time, Shiffrin, shoulders slumped, accepted a comforting hug from Johnson. “It’s OK,’’ Johnson told her.
Is it? That now is the question that will dog Shiffrin. With Lindsey Vonn recuperating in an Italian hospital, the Olympic spotlight has turned squarely on Shiffrin. In the face of the glare in her first event, she blinked.
Nothing in the Olympics happens in a vacuum, and Shiffrin’s shocking finish cannot be considered without weighing what happened to her in Beijing four years ago. There, Shiffrin started her quest for six medals with back-to-back DNFs – that stands for did not finish – in the slalom and giant slalom, took ninth in the super-G, 18th in the downhill and skied out 10 seconds into the slalom portion of the individual combined, failing to take home a single medal.
She has just two more chances to grab a medal – in the giant slalom on Sunday and the slalom on February 18, no doubt heightening the pressure she already carried here to Italy.
To her credit, Shiffrin was gracious in defeat.
She joined in Team USA’s mosh pit celebration for Wiles and Moltzan as they circled around for pictures, chanted and did some dancing so effusive that someone’s arm snatched around the ribbon attached to Wiles’ medal, separating the hardware from its holder – yet another medal mishap in these Olympics.
“(Mikaela) is a beautiful winner and a beautiful, well,’’ Moltzan said, searching for a better word but unable to find one, “beautiful loser. That’s really hard to do. I haven’t talked to her yet, but I can only imagine the feelings she’s going through.’’
Earlier in the day, Shiffrin watched Johnson attack the mountain in the morning downhill and had every intention of matching her teammate’s approach. The two have been friends since they found themselves in the same race room at 11. Neither has had it easy. Johnson had to withdraw from Beijing one month before the Games after injuring her knee.
Shiffrin, of course, went to disastrous results.
It was Johnson, though, who coaxed Shiffrin into the team combined after Shiffrin suffered a near life-threatening puncture wound in Killington, Vermont, in November 2024. The wound missed her colon by five inches and left Shiffrin with understandable trauma. But Johnson talked Shiffrin into joining her in the team combined at the world championships in February 2025, telling her it would be fun. They went on to win gold.
Johnson, who won the Olympic gold on Sunday, delivered the same message to her childhood pal here.
“I was like, ‘Listen, there’s no pressure on my side. I already have my Olympic gold. I’m gonna go do my best. You go do your best. Check out the slalom course, have some fun,’” Johnson said to Shiffrin.
The two seem about as different as two people could be. Johnson is, well, Breezy. While certainly technically sound and smart, one gets the feeling her approach is to just go beat the mountain. Shiffrin is far more deliberate and thoughtful, a thinker. She chooses her words carefully and relies on her technical precision.
It is hard to question, with the 108 World Cup titles she owns, but it almost sounded like she was thinking of her run more than skiing it. She talked about not getting the proper feeling under her feet and admitted she never found the comfort she needed to go full speed.
“I think we always do better with more information,’’ she said. “And I got a lot of information today.’’
The-CNN-Wire
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