Mikaela Shiffrin opens up on terrifying 2024 crash injuries that nearly ended her skiing career

Mikaela Shiffrin has built a career on resilience, precision, and an unrelenting pursuit of excellence, but even for the most decorated alpine skier in history, there are moments that test the very limits of belief. Her violent crash during a giant slalom race in November 2024 was one of those moments — an incident so severe that it forced Shiffrin to confront a question she had never seriously asked before: whether she would ever return to the sport that has defined her life.

The crash occurred during a Women’s World Cup giant slalom event, when Shiffrin lost control at high speed and was thrown violently into the gates and fencing. The impact left her with a deep puncture wound to her abdomen, measuring roughly five centimeters and stopping just one millimeter short of her colon. In elite alpine skiing, crashes are an occupational hazard, but the severity and location of this injury made it particularly frightening. What initially looked like another painful but manageable setback quickly revealed itself to be something far more serious.

In the immediate aftermath, Shiffrin was taken away by ski patrol, visibly shaken and in obvious pain. Medical teams acted quickly, aware that abdominal injuries can be unpredictable and potentially life-threatening. The closeness of the wound to her colon meant that surgery was narrowly avoided, but the recovery process was long, uncomfortable, and mentally draining. For an athlete accustomed to pushing her body to extremes, the forced stillness of recovery proved just as challenging as the physical pain.

Beyond the visible injury, Shiffrin has since revealed that the crash took a significant toll on her mentally. The fear was not limited to whether she could heal physically, but whether she could return to giant slalom — one of her core disciplines — at a level high enough to justify continuing. In alpine skiing, rankings and World Cup points are everything. They determine start positions, competitiveness, and ultimately whether an athlete can realistically contend for podiums.

When injuries keep a skier out of competition, World Cup points can be frozen temporarily. However, once an athlete returns, those protections disappear, and results become critical immediately. Shiffrin found herself on the edge of losing her top-30 giant slalom standing, a scenario that would place her at a severe disadvantage in future races. Starting further back on deteriorating snow can derail even the most talented skier’s chances.

At that moment, the question was brutally simple but deeply personal: could she get herself back to a high enough level, fast enough, to stay competitive? If the answer was no, she admitted she wasn’t sure she had it in her to rebuild again from scratch. Coming back once from injury is hard enough. Doing it repeatedly, especially in a discipline as technically demanding as giant slalom, can feel overwhelming.

The November 2024 crash came less than a year after another significant injury. In January 2024, Shiffrin suffered a downhill crash that left her with a sprained MCL and tibiofibular ligament damage in her left knee. That injury did not require surgery, and she returned to racing within two months. However, the recovery forced her to focus almost exclusively on slalom at the end of the season, leaving giant slalom largely untouched due to lack of training time.

She never expected to face another serious setback so soon. The second injury compounded the first, both physically and emotionally. Losing consecutive chunks of time to rehabilitation disrupted rhythm, confidence, and preparation — elements that are essential at the highest level of skiing. The margins are razor-thin, and any hesitation can be costly.

Despite the doubts, Shiffrin chose not to walk away. Instead, she reframed her mindset, focusing less on outcomes and more on incremental progress. Her return to competition was cautious, calculated, and deeply intentional. Each race became not just a test of speed and technique, but a test of trust — in her body, her instincts, and her ability to manage fear.

Since returning, she has shown flashes of the dominance that made her the winningest alpine skier of all time. While she admits she is not yet back to full speed in giant slalom, the results have steadily improved. A recent fifth-place finish at Kranjska Gora was a reminder that even after trauma, she remains among the world’s elite. In slalom, her strongest discipline, she has looked far more like her old self, opening the season with a remarkable winning streak and continuing to add to her already historic tally of World Cup victories.

Off the slopes, Shiffrin has leaned heavily on her support system. Her fiancé, fellow Olympic skier Aleksander Kilde, has been a constant presence throughout her recovery, offering understanding that only another elite skier can truly provide. Their shared experiences with injury, pressure, and comeback have created a bond rooted in empathy rather than expectation.

As the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics approach, the stakes are unmistakably high. For Shiffrin, the Games represent both a goal and a symbol — proof that she not only survived one of the most frightening chapters of her career, but emerged with her competitive fire intact. She has acknowledged that medals are on her mind, but she also recognizes that this season is a delicate balance between comeback and full-throttle competition.

Rather than obsess over what might go wrong, Shiffrin has embraced a “ride the wave” mentality. She continues to train, race, and travel relentlessly, chasing World Cup points and sharpening her form one start at a time. The fear that once threatened to end her giant slalom career has not vanished completely, but it no longer defines her decisions.

Her story is no longer just about winning races. It is about confronting vulnerability in a sport that rarely allows for it, and choosing perseverance over retreat. The 2024 crash may have come within millimeters of ending her season — and potentially her career — but it also reinforced why Mikaela Shiffrin remains one of the most respected figures in sport.

As she looks ahead to Milan-Cortina, she does so not as an invincible champion, but as a battle-tested athlete who has stared down the possibility of walking away and decided, instead, to keep going.