Mikaela Shiffrin, the most successful alpine skier of all time, said she is feeling better after crashing out of the women’s giant slalom during last weekend’s Stifel Killington Cup in Vermont.
“I’m starting to feel a little bit more human, which is great,” she said in a social media video post. “This is another fairly ambiguous injury and really hard to put a timeline of when I’ll be either back on snow or back to racing.”
Shiffrin struggled to get onto her couch in the video.
Shiffrin suffered from a “puncture wound into the right side of her abdomen and severe muscle trauma,” US Ski and Snowboard said Sunday.
The 29-year-old confirmed Wednesday that she will not compete at the World Cup in Beaver Creek, Colorado, on December 14-15 as she was seeking her 100th race victory.
“This is a really big bummer, not to be able to race Birds of Prey. But on the other hand, I was really lucky and I’m really looking forward to cheering my teammates on recent Beaver Creek.”
Shiffrin gave an update on her latest hospital visit.
“There was a little bit of original concern about my colon,” she said. “There were some air bubbles where that puncture came pretty close to the colon and last night’s check confirmed that my colon is indeed intact.”
However, Shiffrin said the puncture did tear a “cavern” into her oblique muscles, which caused “bleeding and inflammation and just pain in general.”
Shiffrin had taken the lead after her first run before slipping and crashing into the security fence by the side of the slope during her second attempt.
Mikaela Shiffrin breaks all-time skiing record with 87th World Cup win
Mikaela Shiffrin won her 87th World Cup race on Saturday to break the overall record set by skiing legend Ingemar Stenmark.
The American triumphed in the slalom in Åre, Sweden, to become the sport’s all-time winningest athlete.
“Pretty hard to comprehend,” Shiffrin said in her post-race interview. “My brother and sister-in-law are here. I didn’t know they were coming so that makes it so special.”
Shiffrin was in dominant form despite the history at stake. She beat Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener by 0.92 seconds, while Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson finished third.
The win comes on the same resort where she triumphed in her first ever World Cup race back in December 2012.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist was overcome with emotion after breaking the record which has stood since 1989.
“The best feeling is to ski on the second run because you have a lead and you have to be smart” she added.
“I just wanted to be fast too and ski the second run like its own race. I did it exactly how I wanted and that’s amazing.
“To the whole team and all the people who have helped me this whole season and whole career, all these people reaching out now after all these years, it’s pretty incredible. I just want to say thank you for that.”
Breaking Stenmark’s record caps off a remarkable season for Shiffrin given that she did not pick up a single medal from five races at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and failed to finish in three of them.
She has now taken 13 World Cup victories so far this season, four short of her own record of 17 set in 2018-19.
On Friday, the 27-year-old equaled Stenmark’s record with her 86th World Cup win and said she was humbled to be level with the icon.
“It is the greatest honor of my career to be mentioned in the same sentence as Ingemar Stenmark. Incomprehensible and truly unforgettable,” she tweeted Friday.
