Mikaela Shiffrin is Still the Best Skier in the World

After crashing epically on the world's biggest stage. Mikaela Shiffrin is using her experience to remind us that no one not even an Olympian is immune to mental health issues.

- By Rose Minutaglio

Mikaela Shiffrin is used to steering through twists and turns. But nothing could have prepared the champion Alpine skier for the last two years: the sudden death of her father, a debilitating back injury, and a positive COVID-19 test that forced her to miss some World Cup races. Then, in one of the most shocking sequences in the sport's history, Shiffrin was disqualified from not one, not two, but three races at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. After stumbling through the slalom, her signature event, she veered off to the side of the course, took her skis off, and bowed her head as cameras zoomed in. "Everybody experiences the hard days when it's difficult to keep a positive attitude, and you just kind of need to sit down and cry," Shiffrin says. "Except, for me, it all became a very public thing."

At that moment, on top of a mountain, Shiffrin bottomed out. In the past, she might have concealed her burnout with platitudes about being mentally tough or pushing through the pain. This time, she knew that in order to move forward, she needed to look back. "I'm a different person than I was," she says, "and I didn't want to hide what I'm feeling anymore."

By sharing honestly, Shiffrin joins the ranks of major female athletes in recent history who've shined a light on once-taboo subjects like mental health, trauma, and performance pressure. "It's scary," she says, "because it shows vulnerability. But there's no reason to feel shame anymore."