Mikaela Shiffrin won her first giant slalom world title to become the most decorated skier in modern world Alpine skiing championships history with 13 medals, including seven golds.
Shiffrin, racing two days after parting with her coach of seven years, prevailed by 12 hundredths of a second over Italian Federica Brignone, combining times from two runs on Thursday. Norwegian Ragnhild Mowinckel earned bronze in Meribel, France.
Shiffrin led by 36 hundredths at the last intermediate split, but a late slip between gates had her questioning whether she would hold onto the lead.
“My whole body went numb down there. … So much stress,” she said on France TV, adding later that she felt “a bit lucky” to hold on for the victory. “I thought that maybe you just threw everything away, or maybe you’re going to go harder now.
“I don’t even know how to explain it, but my heart is just going crazy. I feel like I’m going to faint.”
ALPINE WORLDS: Results | Broadcast Schedule
Shiffrin had the fastest first run by 12 hundredths over Frenchwoman Tessa Worley, who skied out of her second run.
Shiffrin broke her tie with Kjetil Andre Aamodt, a Norwegian standout of the 1990s and 2000s, for the most individual world championships medals since World War II.
Shiffrin also tied the modern record for individual gold medals with Austrian Toni Sailer (1950s), Frenchwoman Marielle Goitschel (1960s) and Swede Anja Pärson (2000s).
In the 1930s, German Christl Cranz won 15 medals and 12 golds when worlds were held annually with three events and fewer skiers (the International Ski Federation lists the top six finishers per race from that era). Worlds are now biennial with six individual events, including four that Shiffrin contests.
Shiffrin, 27, has 13 medals in 16 career individual world championships races dating to 2013. She won silver or bronze in the GS at the previous three worlds in 2017, 2019 and 2021.
“I don’t know if I can really put a value on any medal, but today felt very special,” she said. “It’s a moment I’m going to remember forever.”
Most of Shiffrin’s major titles, plus the toughest times of her career in recent years, came with Mike Day as her head coach. Shiffrin announced late Tuesday that Day was no longer part of her coaching team. Her plan was to make the change after the season ends in March, but Day decided to leave during worlds after being informed of the decision, Shiffrin’s publicist said.
Shiffrin, whose reason for the change was to have “new leadership on my team for the next phase of my career,” said she was stressed by the situation.
“One thing I really want to say is just thank you to Mike for seven years of, I can’t even say [only] helping me; he’s been such an integral part of my team and being there to support me through some of the most incredible moments in my career and some of the most challenging moments in my career and also my life,” she said. “He’s been there to support me through it all. So it’s just a little bit sad how it came down. I think everybody wonders about the timing. It was never the intention to make an official announcement during world championships. But the way things have conspired, that’s how it happened, and I hope to give him the time and the notice through until the end of the season to figure out his own plan and prepare himself for his own next steps.
“It’s been difficult for all of us to imagine this after so long being such a tight group, really, really a family. That’s difficult. But in the end, we have to focus, and we have to move forward. I’m looking forward to the next opportunities, and I’m really proud of the performance today.”
Shiffrin has one event left at these worlds, the slalom on Saturday.
“In a way the pressure is off, and the most important thing for me is to try to enjoy the last event of this world championships and enjoy my skiing because it feels really quite good,” she said.
As she has throughout the two-week worlds, Shiffrin dismissed drawing parallels to last year’s Olympics, where she skied out of three of her five individual events and had a best individual finish of ninth.
On Thursday, she won an Olympics or world championships event for the first time in her last 10 starts.
“I wouldn’t say revenge [from the Olympics],” she said. “It’s so easy to see the similarities between Olympics, world championships and last year to now, but there’s no real correlation except that the big events you want to make it work in that moment. Today, I really saw myself losing it.”
Worlds continue Friday with the men’s giant slalom, live on Peacock.
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!
Norway’s Marte Olsbu Røiseland, who won five biathlon medals at last year’s Olympics, including two individual golds, announced she will retire after this weekend’s season-ending World Cup stop in Oslo.
“It’s the right time,” the 32-year-old Røiseland said, according to the International Biathlon Union (IBU). “I just feel it. It’s a feeling I had the whole year, actually.”
Røiseland was one of the most dominant athletes across all sports at the Olympics, tying the record for most medals won at one Winter Games, then missed the first month of this past season due to health issues.
She won one individual bronze medal and two relay golds at last month’s world championships, then earned her two World Cup wins this season two weeks ago.
“Last year was an incredible season, but I’m so glad I took another year,” she said, according to the IBU. “This year, it’s been tough, but it’s been so worth it. I’m just so happy with everything I have done. Now it’s time. I feel it, and I feel the life is so much more than biathlon.”
In 2020, Røiseland won medals in all seven events at the world championships — five gold and two bronze.
She was considered a late bloomer, competing in her first Olympics at age 27, earning her first of 19 World Cup wins at 29 and winning her World Cup overall title at 31.
Later Tuesday, German Denise Herrmann-Wick, a reigning individual Olympic and world champion, announced she will also end her career at the Oslo World Cup at age 34.
Then on Wednesday came more retirements: Norwegian Tiril Eckhoff, who won eight Olympic medals and 15 world championships medals, and Frenchwoman Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet, who won three Olympic medals and seven world championships medals.
France’s Julia Simon, who had a best individual 2022 Olympic finish of sixth, leads this season’s World Cup overall standings.
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!
A post shared by Marte Olsbu Røiseland (@marteolsburoiseland)
A post shared by Tiril Eckhoff (@tirileckhoff)
Olympic shot put silver medalist Raven Saunders accepted a ban until February 2024 for drug-testing whereabouts failures.
A suspension for whereabouts failures means any combination of three missed drug tests and/or filing failures in a 12-month period. A filing failure could mean incorrectly filling out forms to tell drug testers where an athlete can be found, or not submitting quarterly forms at all.
Saunders failed “to follow an administrative policy regarding updating her whereabouts,” according to a statement from her representative that stated she has never tested positive for any banned substances or performance-enhancing drugs.
She “has accepted full responsibility for her failure to update her whereabouts according to the prescribed procedure on multiple occasions. She will use the time during her suspension to focus on her mental health and intensify her training to prepare for the Paris Games.”
Saunders, 26, had whereabouts failures last year on Jan. 8, May 26 and Aug. 15, according to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
She was banned 18 months, backdated to Aug. 15, the day of her third whereabouts failure. Saunders will miss this year’s USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships and world championships but remains eligible for the next Olympics in 2024.
Saunders, who has been open about struggles with mental health, was one of the breakout track and field stars of the Tokyo Games. After receiving her medal, she crossed her arms above her head to form an “X,” which she said was “to try and bring the world together for all people who have felt left behind, for all people who have wanted to be loved but have been loved less.”
Two days after the final, Saunders received a phone call from the U.S. Her mother, Clarissa, suffered a seizure and was en route to a hospital, a doctor told her. Later, Saunders’ uncle called and told her that Clarissa had died.
Saunders underwent major hip surgery in fall 2021, then was fourth at last year’s USATF Outdoor Championships, missing the world team by one spot.
“Combined with recovery from a second major hip surgery in the fall of 2021 which affected her performance at the USA Team qualifier in 2022, and handling the estate of her mother and newfound responsibility for her sibling, Saunders came under a veritable mountain of additional life pressure alongside the pressures of being an elite athlete,” according to the statement. “Despite this tragic loss, Saunders remains committed to her athletic career and using her platform to raise awareness for mental health issues. She has expressed regret for failing to comply with the USADA policy and acknowledges the importance of upholding the integrity of sports and anti-doping efforts.”
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!