By Two-time Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin says she will return to World Cup alpine skiing on January 30, exactly two months after she was injured in a hard fall.
Shiffrin, the most successful alpine skier in history, suffered a puncture wound to her abdomen and severe muscle trauma when she crashed out at the Stifel Killington Cup in Vermont on November 30.
It is remarkable that Shiffrin – who remains one victory away from becoming the first alpine skier to reach 100 World Cup wins – will soon be competing again, given less than two months ago she struggled even to get onto her sofa.
Her first race back will be the slalom in Courchevel, France.
“It’s going to be a little bit nerve-wracking, to be honest,” Shiffrin told the Associated Press. “These past six weeks, every step it’s like: ‘Geez, should this be hurting less? Should I be better at this? Should I be more tolerant of the pain?’
“There are so many questions that come up in your mind of basically whether or not you’re doing well enough. But when we take a step back and look where we are now … it’s pretty exciting.”
After Shiffrin fell, she hit one of the gates before careering into the security nets. To this day, however, it remains a mystery what punctured her side.
She told AP that fans even reached out to her and offered their hypotheses, but whatever it was came just a “millimeter” from puncturing her abdominal wall and colon.
“A millimeter from pretty catastrophic,” Shiffrin said. “Then it was like, ‘Your colon is intact. This is just a hole in your side. That’s fine.’ I’m like, ‘But there’s still a hole in my side and I can’t move.’”
Shiffrin was leading the race when she fell and looked on course to reach the elusive 100-win mark in World Cup skiing. She still has nine races this season – including Courchevel – in her preferred slalom and giant slalom disciplines to reach the milestone.
