SPINDLERUV MLYN, Czechia – Mikaela Shiffrin is back on the World Cup giant slalom podium after two years.
And she could hardly have chosen a better moment to do so.
The American star finished third Saturday in the last GS before the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Shiffrin said, “It’s been two years since I’ve been on the podium in the GS, and it’s been over a year since I believed I could be on the podium in the GS. It’s amazing to me.”
The race was won by defending Olympic champion Sarah Hector, who held on to her early lead for her first win since January 2025.
“You always have to keep working, as you can see today, there are a lot of strong girls out there,” said the Swedish champ. “I’m very happy that I finally crossed the finish line first. It’s a really good feeling.”
Shiffrin, the 2018 Olympic GS gold medalist, finished 0.23 seconds behind Hector and the American shared the podium with second-place teammate Paula Moltzon, who was 0.18 off the pace and led a strong performance by the American team, with Nina O’Brien fifth and AJ Hurt eighth.
Shiffrin holds the women’s record for most World Cup GS wins in a career, with 22, but has not had a top-three result in the discipline in 11 events since finishing runner-up in a race in Slovakia in January 2024.
Six days later, she crashed on the slopes on the course used for the Olympics the following month and did not compete again in the GS until the start of the 2024–25 season.
In November 2024, an accident at her GS home in Killington, Vermont left her with a gash on the right side of her stomach and severe damage to her oblique abdominal muscles, and subsequently suffered from long-term post-traumatic stress disorder.
This season, Shiffrin took three fourth-place finishes before returning to the podium on Saturday, three weeks before the Olympic race in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Racing again at the Czech venue of her World Cup debut at age 15 in March 2011, Shiffrin called it “a very special day” to share the GS podium with Moltzon for the first time.
“It’s really hard to balance that team spirit and that individual competitive spirit. I think the way our team is working right now, we’re doing the same,” Shiffrin said.
Moltzen, chasing his first career win, got his third podium of the season.
“You’re always wondering if it’s going to happen, but I’m patient and will keep waiting,” she said. “But it’s also really inspiring to have my level of GS skiing right here going into the Olympics.”
In the opening race, Hector pipped Switzerland’s Camille Rast by 0.02 seconds, while GS ranking leader Julia Scheib of Austria was third by 0.26 seconds.
Rast dropped to fourth place, while Scheib crashed out in the final race.
Overall World Cup champion Federica Brignone, who made a strong return to racing on Tuesday after a nine-month injury layoff, and her Italian teammate Sofia Goggia, the 2018 Olympic downhill champion, did not attend the event in Czechia, with a weekend of speed racing in Switzerland next week ahead of their home Olympics.
A slalom on the same hill is scheduled for Sunday.
