KILLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – American skier Mikaela Shiffrin suffered an abrasion to her left hip when she fell during the second run of Saturday’s World Cup giant slalom race, flipping and falling. “It stung,” he said. Protective fence.
Shiffrin remained at the edge of the trail for quite some time as ski patrollers responded. She was taken down the hill on a sled, waved to a cheering crowd, and then headed to the clinic for evaluation.
“I don’t have to worry too much at this point, I just can’t move,” she said in a video later posted. on social media. “There were quite a few scrapes and something stuck in them. … I’m really sorry to have scared you all. All previous scans seem to be clear.”
She plans to miss Sunday’s slalom race, writing on Instagram that she will be “cheering from the sidelines.”
The 29-year-old took the lead after her first GS run and was on track for her 100th World Cup win. She was five gates short of Killington’s steep goal pitch, with the outside edge within sight of the goal line. She hits a gate, somersaults and slides into another gate. The fencing slowed her momentum when she suddenly stopped.
Current Olympic GS champion Sara Hector (Sweden) won with a total time of 1:53.08. Croatia’s Zrinka Ljutic finished second, followed by Swiss racer Camille Rast in third. For the Americans, Paula Molzan and Nina O’Brien finished fifth and sixth.
“Of course it’s really sad to see Mikaela have a crash like that and skate so well,” Hector said on the broadcast after his win. “It breaks my heart and the hearts of everyone else here.”
The accident surprised everyone. Shiffrin rarely has a DNF (ski racing term for “failed to finish”). He played in 274 World Cup games and had just 18 DNFs. Her last GS DNF was in January 2018.
Shiffrin also suffered non-life-threatening injuries. In her 14-year career, she has only rehabbed two injuries on the slopes. One was a torn medial collateral ligament and bone bruise in his right knee in December 2015, and an MCL sprain and tibiofibular ligament injury in his left knee due to a fall on a downhill slope in January 2024. Neither knee injury required surgery, and in both cases Shiffrin returned to racing within two months.
Saturday was shaping up to be a great day for Shiffrin. Shiffrin skated the first run perfectly, holding a 0.32-second lead as she pursued her 100th World Cup victory. Shiffrin, who grew up in both New Hampshire and Colorado and honed her skills at nearby Burke Mountain Academy, has long been a fan favorite.
Shiffrin is driven more by scoring a perfect run than by winning. She has broken so many records along the way. She surpassed Lindsey Vonn’s record of 82 Women’s World Cup wins in the giant slalom on January 24, 2023 in Kronplatz, Italy.
In March of that year, Shiffrin won her 87th career match, breaking Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark’s record for most World Cup wins.
To date, she has won five overall World Cup titles, two Olympic silver and gold medals, and seven World Championships.
In other FIS Alpine World Cup news, the Tremblant World Cup, a two-women’s giant slalom event scheduled for next weekend in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, has been canceled. On Thanksgiving Day, 21 inches of snow fell in Killington, but races in Tremblant, five hours north of Killington, had to be canceled due to lack of snow.
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AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.
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AP Ski Details: https://apnews.com/hub/Alpine Skiing