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US gold-medallist Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates her victory after the women's Alpine Skiing competition at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina. Michael Kappeler/dpa
Alpine skiing superstar Mikaela Shiffrin was overcome with emotion as she remembered her late father after winning slalom gold at the Milan/Cortina Winter Olympics on Wednesday.
Her father, Jeff, passed away unexpectedly in 2020 in an accident and Shiffrin spent more than 300 days away from skiing after he died.
"This was a moment I have dreamed about. I've also been very scared of this moment," she said after claiming her first Olympic gold medal since the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
"Everything in life that you do after you lose someone you love is like a new experience. It's like being born again."
Holding back tears, Shiffrin said "maybe today was the first time that I could actually accept this reality, and instead of thinking I would be going in this moment without him, to take the moment to be silent with him.
"And with the whole team who's here with me now and with my mom, who is here with me now and has been with me since the beginning. It was a little bit more spiritual than I usually am, but I'm really grateful for that."
Shiffrin won gold with a whopping 1.5 second advantage over silver medallist Camille Rast. Wednesday's success was also the first major title in her pet event since a fourth straight world championship gold in 2019.
The US alpine skier has dealt with a lot of pressure and also setbacks due to injury. At the end of 2024, she crashed and suffered a severe puncture wound to her abdomen.
Since then, Shiffrin has been very open about her mental health struggles and talked about how she experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the crash, which caused her to hesitate and feel anxiety before races.
"I won! I got there, in the face of fear and adrenaline and the potential for criticism and backlash from people who know nothing and don’t even try to understand," she wrote on Instagram.
Her fiancée, Norwegian alpine skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, said in his own post: "What you did today shows that your mental strenght is out of this world. Four years ago, you left the Olympics with more questions than answers. Today, you answered every single one. You shut all mouths and showed the world who the queen is."
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US gold-medallist Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates her victory after the women's Alpine Skiing competition at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina. Michael Kappeler/dpa
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US gold-medallist Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates her victory after the women's Alpine Skiing competition at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina. Michael Kappeler/dpa
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US gold-medallist winner Mikaela Shiffrin (C) celebrates with Switzerland's silver-medallist Camille Rast and Sweden's bronze-medallist Anna Swenn Larsson after the women's Alpine Skiing competition at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina. Michael Kappeler/dpa
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US gold-medallist winner Mikaela Shiffrin (C) celebrates with Switzerland's silver-medallist and Sweden's bronze-medallist Anna Swenn Larsson after the women's Alpine Skiing competition at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina. Michael Kappeler/dpa
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