By American skier Mikaela Shiffrin won a record-tying 15th world championships medal by taking gold in the inaugural women’s team combined event alongside Breezy Johnson.
The duo finished with a combined time of 2:40.89 in Saalbach, Austria – Shiffrin having competed in the slalom and Johnson in the downhill. It was the 29-year-old Johnson’s second gold medal of the world championships having claimed the individual downhill title on Saturday.
Shiffrin, meanwhile, announced on Monday that she was withdrawing from this week’s giant slalom race, citing PTSD from her serious crash in Killington, Vermont on November 30.
The two-time Olympic champion posted the third-fastest time in the slalom during Tuesday’s team combined event, and her victory alongside Johnson matches the overall world championships record set by German skier Christl Cranz in the 1930s.
“This was an amazing day,” said Shiffrin about teaming up with her childhood friend. “For me up there, it was nerve-wracking because Breezy did her job just spectacularly this morning, it was so much fun to watch. All these days, day in and day out, she’s been executing.”
Chasing a record-extending 100th World Cup win of her career, Shiffrin suffered a puncture wound to her abdomen and severe muscle trauma when she crashed out in the giant slalom event in Killington.
On Monday, she said that she is still “working through some mental obstacles” before returning to the giant slalom, which she called “an event that I loved so dearly only 2 months ago.”
The team combined race, a new addition to this year’s world championships, sees one skier compete in the downhill and another in the slalom, with their scores added together in the final leaderboard.
The Swiss team of Lara Gut-Behrami and Wendy Holdener won silver, 0.39 seconds behind Shiffrin and Johnson, while Stephanie Venier and Katharina Truppe of Austria were 0.53 seconds back in third.
American Lauren Macuga was the fastest in the downhill, but she and teammate Paula Moltzan eventually finished fourth overall, narrowly missing out on a medal.
Lindsey Vonn, meanwhile, was 21st in the downhill and 16th overall with US teammate AJ Hurt. Prior to the event, Vonn had deleted a social media post bemoaning that fact that she wasn’t paired with Shiffrin, which would have united the two most decorated female skiers in World Cup history.
“Maybe I didn’t help myself or the team by having my Twitter fingers out,” the 40-year-old Vonn, who recently came out of retirement and returned to competitive skiing, said on Tuesday, per The Associated Press (AP).
“But at the same time, I’m a human being and I was disappointed in the communication. And I let my feelings be known. I’m a human. I have feelings. So shoot me.”
According to AP, American speed coach Alex Hödlmoser explained the decision to pair Shiffrin with Johnson, saying: “It would have been a cool thing if those two greats (Shiffrin and Vonn) would have raced together, but at the moment, others are stronger in their performance.
“We had to make sure to bring the fastest pairings together, and it was very obvious that Breezy was the fastest in the downhill and therefore would race with Mikaela.”
