SESTRIERE – Mikaela Shiffrin finished 2.89 seconds off the lead in the opening run of a World Cup giant slalom on Friday, her first race in the discipline in nearly 12 weeks.
The American holder of a record 99 World Cup wins hadn’t raced in giant slalom since suffering severe trauma to her oblique muscles and a deep puncture wound during a GS crash in Killington, Vermont in November.
“I do not yet feel entirely myself… but I do feel enough of myself to be here… and for now, that is enough,” Shiffrin posted on Instagram on the eve of Friday’s race.
Racing in perfect, sunny conditions, Alice Robinson of New Zealand posted the fastest time and led Federica Brignone by 0.19 seconds.
The Italian beat Robinson to GS gold at the world championships last week but was ill over the past few days.
Amercian Paula Moltzan, who took bronze at the worlds, stood third and had 0.83 to make up in the second run.
Defending overall champion Lara Gut-Behrami skied out off the course near the end of her run.
It is the first race after the worlds, where Shiffrin paired with downhill world champion Breezy Johnson to win the team combined and finished fifth in the slalom, but sat out the giant slalom because of “PTSD-esque” fears.
Because of her injury absence, Shiffrin has dropped to 11th on the ranking list that determines the start order for World Cup GS races, losing her place among the top seven skiers who get the most favorable start numbers.
Shiffrin got bib No. 8 for Friday’s race, which was only her third giant slalom start in 13 months.
After hurting her left knee in a downhill crash in January 2024, she reduced her schedule to only racing in slaloms for the remainder of her 2023-24 campaign. This season, she finished fifth in the season-opening GS in Austria in October before the crash in Killington happened.
Shiffrin has won a women’s record 22 giant slaloms in her career and took the season discipline title in 2019 and 2023.
Friday’s race is a replacement for a GS that was canceled in Tremblant, Quebec, in December. Another GS is scheduled for Saturday, followed by a slalom the next day.
___
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
