So I want to talk about Mikaela Shiffrin. But before I can do that, I feel the need to talk about one of my favorite things about sport, about athletes: redemption. While watching a definitive victory, a historic performance, is thrilling, to be sure (remember: I’m eventually going to talk about Shiffrin, so historic performance is definitely on the table), I also love the moment when things don’t go the way they are supposed to -- that moment when the fallen digs in, looks at the winner, and asks: “Go again?”
Without a next game, a chance for the also-ran to find redemption, there really wouldn’t be any reason for fans to keep watching or an athlete to keep trying. Whether a competition ends in a blowout or a squeaker, on a playground or at Madison Square Garden, there can always be a rematch, a “let’s play again tomorrow” moment that enables an athlete, a team, to transcend loss and find a reason to get out of bed the next morning.
Sport is filled with redemption stories. My favorite is that of American snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis, who had to wait 16 years to find her way back to the Olympic podium. She had to settle for silver in 2006, when she infamously threw some ill-advised flair mere yards from the finish, premature merriment that crashed -- literally -- her gold medal dreams. Flash forward to Beijing, 2022, when at 36 years of age she stayed low across the finish line, no flair to be found, her slow-breaking smile a subtle indicator of her joy at finally capturing long-wanted gold.
The Beijing Winter Olympics was not as kind to Mikaela Shiffrin, who sat by herself, head cradled in her hands, skis by her side, on the snow for a soul-crushing 20 minutes after going out of the slalom, her signature event, on the fifth gate, making for a second DNF in a handful of days, but sadly not her last. She left Beijing empty-handed, failing to add to her two golds and one silver from the previous two Olympics.
But here’s the thing about Shiffrin that is kind of incredible: she acknowledges when there is a problem, she talks about how she is solving it, and then, oh yes, she finds redemption.
Last Sunday, less than three months after a crash in the giant slalom in Killington, Vermont, left her with a puncture wound in her abdomen -- an injury that she fully documented on her social media platforms, including the rather gruesome draining surgery in December to combat infection -- Shiffrin won her 100th World Cup race, shredding the slalom in Sestriere in beast mode. It was just her sixth race since this latest crash (let’s be clear: alpine skiers have to be specific when talking about crashes) left her on the sidelines, talking about whether or not coming back was even possible.
That crash in Killington that day in November had dashed her dream of hitting the historic century mark -- she’d been leading, en route to victory, when she lost her edge and hit a gate...and then another gate...and then was in the netting. Flash forward to Sestriere, Shiffrin still did not look like her champion self. Indeed, in giant slalom, she clocked a time that didn’t even qualify her for a second run.
But then came the slalom, an event she has turned into art, and with that win, my Instagram became, yet again, a Shiffrin stan account. This 100th victory is not a record: she already broke that in March of 2023 when she passed Ingmar Stenmark’s longstanding mark of 87 World Cup victories.
Is she done? Who knows. At 29, she remains at the top of the field, untouchable by a distance that is hard to fathom and rare in sport -- a space known by a very few, from Serena Williams to Simone Biles, Al Oerter to Michael Phelps. But she stands a long way from that terrible day on the mountain in China in 2022, a day when nothing seemed to go right, and that terrible day last November, when the extent of her injuries was still unclear. Shiffrin dug deep and got herself back to the mountain, ready to go again -- and win.
Amy Bass is professor of sport studies and chair of the division of social science and communication at Manhattanville University. Bass is the author of ONE GOAL: A COACH, A TEAM, AND THE GAME THAT BROUGHT A DIVDED TOWN TOGETHER, among other titles. In 2012, she won an Emmy for her work with NBC Olympic Sports on the London Olympic Games.
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