Inside Mikaela Shiffrin's journey to a golden Olympic redemption

For more than three hours on Feb. 10, Mikaela Shiffrin and her team hashed through how a day that had begun with so much promise had turned nightmarish.The American Alpine skiing star had spent the past four years answering questions about a disastrous showing at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, where the greatest skier in history had crashed three times in six races and left China with zero medals. Now, an ugly run in her first race at the 2026 Games — the slalom half of the team combined event, in which a slalom skier and speed skier each take a run in their specialty and the best combined time wins — had cost her and Breezy Johnson a medal.Advertisement