Mikaela Shiffrins Olympic woes continue with 11th

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Mikaela Shiffrin‘s Olympic woes continued Sunday, with the American skier finishing 11th in the women’s giant slalom at the Milan-Cortina Games.

Italy’s Federica Brignone gained the race for her second gold of these Olympics, posting a mixed time of 2 minutes and 13.50 seconds. Sweden’s Sara Hector and Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernesund tied for silver (+0.62). Hector and Stjernesund, stunningly, posted equivalent occasions in both of their runs — 1:03.97 in Run 1 and 1:10.15 in Run 2.

Shiffrin’s second run began strong but she misplaced time in the center half of the course to end in 1:10.17 mixed time of 2:14.42 (+0.92).

Shiffrin, the all-time chief in World Cup wins, has failed to attain the rostrum in her last eight Olympic occasions. Although Shiffrin gained gold in the giant slalom in the 2018 Olympics, her subsequent performances in Beijing in 2022, and last Tuesday in Cortina, have people questioning if the Games current a brick-wall mental block for her.

After all, she got here into these Olympics having gained seven of eight World Cup slalom races, and ending second in the one she didn’t win.

Yet Tuesday, in the ladies’s mixed, she was fifteenth out of 18 finishers. That was a disappointing debut for a legendary racer wanting to bounce back from her last Olympic exhibiting.

Four years in the past, she was a favourite in Beijing but went 0 for 6 on podiums and failed to cross the end line 3 times. Her best particular person end result was ninth in the super-G.

Sunday was all about the giant slalom, a self-discipline in which Shiffrin holds the ladies’s file for most World Cup wins with 22.

But she has endured a long dry spell in the self-discipline in current years. She didn’t have a top-three end result in giant slalom between January 2024 — when she was runner-up at the race in Slovakia — until her third-place end in Czechia last month. She failed to attain the rostrum in her 11 races in between.

That said, since the end of 2025, she has been steadily enhancing, going from sixth to fifth to fourth to third in World Cup finishes main into the Olympics.

That upward trajectory was not evident in her first giant slalom run Sunday. On a cool but sunny start to the day, she skied the course at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in 1:04.25 — best of the 4 Americans but 1.02 seconds off Brignone. That put Shiffrin in seventh place heading into the afternoon session.