CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Mikaela Shiffrin has dominated slalom all season and Wednesday's final race of the Alpine ski schedule will be the U.S. great's last chance of a medal at the Milano Cortina Games.
On paper, the most successful Alpine skier in World Cup history is overwhelming favourite for gold.
Shiffrin was Olympic champion in 2014 and is a four-times world champion in the discipline. She has won seven out of eight slaloms this season and finished second in the other.
The 30-year-old American also came into the Olympics with the women's World Cup slalom crystal globe secured for a record ninth time and of her 108 World Cup wins, 71 have been in slalom -- the most by any Alpine skier in any discipline.
And yet the pressure is building, amid increasing mention of her medal blank from Beijing 2022.
Despite her stunning World Cup success, Shiffrin has not won an Olympic medal since 2018.
Favourite for gold in the team combined, it all came down to the slalom leg after downhill champion Breezy Johnson had set the pace. Shiffrin was 15th fastest and the pair ended up fourth.
In the giant slalom, a discipline that has posed problems since Shiffrin suffered a puncture wound in a race in November 2024, she finished 11th after a second run set by her coach Karin Harjo -- who became the first woman to set an Olympic Alpine course.
'TRY TO HANDLE IT DIFFERENTLY IN MY HEAD'
Shiffrin posted on Instagram before that race that while the Olympics focused on medals, skiers were also exposed to a "vulnerability to erroneous judgment and narratives built on a limited understanding of what this sport truly demands".
After the giant slalom, she spoke of her learnings from the opening week.
“There were a lot of turns where I was quite quick on the team combined day, and a handful where I missed. There was just a misalignment, and it was a couple of things, a combination of course setting, equipment, and conditions, and then my mentality was not matching the day," she said.
“So I'm kind of going into it (the slalom) with my eyes open that we can see a very similar situation, and I will try to handle it differently in my head.”
Rivals will hope the piste layout and snow conditions are to their advantage.
The only skier to have beaten Shiffrin in slalom this season is Switzerland's Camille Rast, the reigning world champion who is seeking a first Olympic medal.
Her 32-year-old teammate Wendy Holdener won silver at the 2025 championships, with Shiffrin fourth, but the five-times Olympic medallist skipped Sunday's giant to get in some extra slalom training.
Austria's Katharina Truppe, Germany's triple Olympic silver medallist Emma Aicher and Italian-born Lara Colturi, who races for Albania, have also been on the World Cup podium this season as have Germany's Lena Duerr and American Paula Moltzan, bronze medallist in team combined.
Italy will have only three skiers after a request to replace injured 16-year-old Giada d'Antonio was rejected.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)
