Mikaela Shiffrin’s Olympic Nightmare Continues with Slalom Collapse

Listen, I have barely recovered from the Simon Biles stuff. I'm fricken done being let down. I've been watching all the hype, the commercials the accolades. Is it too much to ask for a F-cking Gold Medal.

I'm pissed. Talk about a bunch of great marketing up in smoke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3DHM1YQsGo

Mikaela Shiffrin’s Olympic Nightmare Continues with Slalom Collapse

Handed the chance to win a gold medal in the team combined event, the American delivered one of the worst slalom races of her career and finished off the podium

By Rachel Bachman, WSJ

Feb. 10, 2026

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy—For three years and 11 months out of every four years, Mikaela Shiffrin is by far the best alpine skier in the world. The American star routinely dominates almost every elite slalom she enters, often by a huge margin. No man or woman in history has won more World Cup races.

Then she gets to the Olympics.

On Tuesday, Shiffrin was racing with a gold medal on the line in the team combined event and proceeded to turn in one of the slowest slaloms of the day—and her entire career.

“I didn’t quite find a comfort level that allowed me to produce full speed,” Shiffrin said.

Her catastrophically timed and shockingly slow run in the event she usually owns dropped her two-woman U.S. team from first down to fourth place and straight off the podium. It also extended a nightmarish stretch of Olympic finishes in Shiffrin’s otherwise outstanding career.

Although Shiffrin was looking forward to racing in the team combined, a new event for these Games, the format came with a new kind of pressure. The event consists of pairs of teammates, one racing a downhill course, one racing a slalom, and simply adds their two times together. Whichever skier goes second usually enters knowing precisely what’s required for a medal.

Shiffrin’s teammate, Breezy Johnson, couldn’t have put her in a better position. She had finished the downhill round on Tuesday morning in first place and handed Shiffrin a 0.06-second advantage to take into the slalom leg. That meant that all Shiffrin had to do was turn in a typically clean run for the U.S. to finish first. Johnson was already coming off her own gold after winning the individual Olympic downhill on Sunday.

The downhill round of the team combined ended around noon Tuesday in Italy, meaning Shiffrin had to wait several hours for her turn to race. With Johnson finishing in a first-place time of 1:36.59, ahead of Austria’s Ariane Raedler, the pressure was on Shiffrin to wrap up the gold.

This time, she reached the bottom of the course, which she had failed to do in three of her six races at Beijing 2022. But she didn’t get there particularly fast. Shiffrin’s time was 15th out of 18 the slalom skiers to finish.

Shiffrin’s time was 15th out of 18 the slalom skiers to finish.

Shiffrin’s time was 15th out of 18 the slalom skiers to finish. Aleksandra Szmigiel/Reuters

The last time Shiffrin finished 15th in any slalom that she completed was 2012, two years before she qualified for her first Olympics. Her performance was so mediocre, in fact, that Shiffrin and Johnson weren’t even the top Americans on Tuesday. They were outdone by their U.S. teammates Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan, who snagged the bronze.

Shiffrin hasn’t always struggled at the Olympics. At her first Games, Sochi 2014, she won the slalom gold and finished fifth in the giant slalom. She said that in hindsight, it helped that she had no concept at age 18 of the massive spotlight an Olympic medal would bring.

It also brought pressure. At Pyeongchang 2018, Shiffrin tackled an ambitious schedule that was scrambled by weather delays and stymied by long commutes to the mountain. She came away with a gold in giant slalom and silver in the alpine combined—a fantastic result for most skiers but a disappointment for Shiffrin.

Then in Beijing, she melted down. Shiffrin ended without a single medal. And since then, she has repeatedly mentioned her dread of the Milan Cortina Games.

“I have yet to go to Cortina,” Shiffrin said in a recent podcast appearance. “And it might not end beautifully for me. Like, I have nightmares.”

Shiffrin is set to take on two more events here: the giant slalom on Sunday and the individual slalom on Feb. 18.

Breezy Johnson finished the downhill round on Tuesday morning in first place and handed Shiffrin a 0.06-second advantage to take into the slalom leg.

Breezy Johnson finished the downhill round on Tuesday morning in first place and handed Shiffrin a 0.06-second advantage to take into the slalom leg. Lisi Niesner/Reuters

Shiffrin’s struggles at the Games are even more confounding in the context of her career. This season, she has won a staggering seven out of eight World Cup slalom races and finished second in the other one.

That’s why she and Johnson entered Tuesday as favorites to win gold. That only became more likely once Johnson handed her the lead.

“Listen, there’s no pressure on my side,” Johnson said she told Shiffrin. “I already have my Olympic gold. I’m going to do my best. You go do your best.”

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