Mikaela Shiffrin crashed into the security nets after dropping management whereas touchdown a leap throughout a World Cup downhill Friday on the course for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics and was being checked for a attainable left leg damage.
The American skier with a report 95 World Cup wins was helped off the course together with her left boot raised off the snow.
“Mikaela Shiffrin was taken by ambulance to the clinic in Cortina and is being evaluated for a left leg damage. Preliminary evaluation reveals the ACL and PCL appear intact. Additional particulars to come back,” Shiffrin’s group mentioned in an announcement.
Shiffrin added on social media: “Thanks all to your help.”
A helicopter was seen going up the mountain after Shiffrin’s crash but it surely wasn’t clear if Shiffrin was airlifted away.
Shiffrin’s arms had been flailing as she landed in a patch of soppy snow on the higher portion of the Olympia delle Tofane course, simply earlier than the slender schuss — or chute — that goes by means of two partitions of rock and is essentially the most attribute function of the most important girls’s race of the season. She then slammed into the online at excessive velocity and rebounded again onto the snow.
Medics tended to Shiffrin instantly and she or he ultimately bought up and limped away for extra care.
Former general champion Federica Brignone additionally crashed shortly after the race resumed following an extended delay due to Shiffrin’s fall. However Brignone bought proper up and proceeded to ski down.
“I’m OK though I’ve a couple of bruises right here and there,” Brignone mentioned, including that due to added terrain and rolls on the course, it was one of many hardest assessments the ladies have confronted all season.
“Really, it was excellent,” mentioned Brignone, who fell halfway down. “We’ve simply gotten used to so many simple programs like huge open highways that whenever you discover a tough course you’ve bought to adapt. … I made a silly mistake.”
Brignone additionally urged that there are too many races on the schedule.
Instantly after Brignone’s fall, Olympic champion Corinne Suter pulled up halfway down her run with an obvious damage. Suter sat and clutched her left knee.
Michelle Gisin, a two-time Olympic champion, additionally crashed in a while however appeared to keep away from severe damage.
In all, 12 of 52 starters didn’t end the race, which was received by Stephanie Venier of Austria.
The downhill was held amid clear and sunny situations however heat temperatures.
The Tofane course will host girls’s snowboarding on the 2026 Video games and Shiffrin received 4 medals in 4 occasions on the 2021 world championships in Cortina.
Shiffrin and Brignone turned the fourth and fifth former general World Cup champions to crash previously two weeks following season-ending accidents to Alexis Pinturault, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Petra Vlhová.
Kilde is Shiffrin’s boyfriend and Vlhova is her greatest rival.
Shiffrin, who specializes within the technical disciplines of slalom and large slalom, hadn’t raced a velocity occasion since a super-G in Val d’Isere, France, greater than a month in the past. She additionally didn’t end that race after lacking a turning gate on a blind part that troubled a number of different athletes.
However Shiffrin received the earlier downhill she entered in St Moritz, Switzerland, in December.
Having been off the velocity circuit for thus lengthy, Shiffrin additionally struggled in the one coaching session held Wednesday, noting on Instagram that she had a few “scary moments on the course”.
A second coaching session scheduled for Thursday was canceled because of sturdy winds.
Nonetheless, nearly instantly after her crash, Shiffrin took time to write down a message to her U.S. teammates that had been nonetheless to race. “It’s all okay women, floor is cash, you bought this!” Shiffrin mentioned on the squad’s WhatsApp group.
Marta Bassino, an Italian skier who completed eleventh, grew nervous when she noticed Shiffrin mendacity within the nets whereas using the chairlift as much as the beginning.
“It left fairly an impression on me as a result of she was within the nets and wasn’t transferring,” Bassino mentioned. “However then she bought up and that was an enormous reduction.”
There was additionally a way of reduction within the packed end space when Shiffrin bought up, as the gang let loose a collective sigh.
“It was an actual downhill, with a number of sections the place you actually wanted to work with the terrain,” Bassino added. “The snow was nice and the course was incredible.”
Not, sadly, for Shiffrin.
