Mikaela Shiffrin’s journey back to her best in giant slalom has been about far more than physical recovery. After a frightening crash in November 2024, the American skiing superstar has had to rebuild her confidence while dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder connected to the discipline.
Shiffrin suffered the serious crash during a World Cup giant slalom race in Killington, Vermont, on November 30, 2024. She had been chasing another landmark victory when she lost an edge on her final run and crashed heavily into the course before ending up in the protective fencing. The accident left her with a puncture wound and significant damage to her oblique muscles.
The physical injury was only part of the challenge. When Shiffrin eventually returned to competition, giant slalom remained psychologically difficult. She acknowledged that she was experiencing symptoms of PTSD and began working with a psychologist to help her deal with the fear and intrusive memories connected to the crash.
Her progress, however, has been gradual and encouraging.
In March 2025, Shiffrin explained that the flashbacks were becoming less frequent during training. She said her processing speed and mind-body connection had improved significantly, although thoughts of crashing and the pain she experienced could still appear, particularly when she was standing in the start gate.
For Shiffrin, simply returning to giant-slalom training was an important part of the healing process. Rather than expecting everything to return immediately, she focused on repeated exposure and slowly rebuilding the confidence that had been shaken by the accident.
The contrast with her earlier career made the struggle particularly significant. Giant slalom had previously been one of Shiffrin’s strongest events. She won Olympic gold in the discipline at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, and 22 of her first 100 World Cup victories came in giant slalom.
After the Killington crash, she skipped giant slalom at the world championships and initially struggled to reproduce her previous level when she returned. Yet she could already see signs that her technique was coming back. Some sections of her training runs were competitive with the fastest skiers in the world.
Shiffrin recognised that putting an entire giant-slalom run together would require patience, repetition and more time on different courses and conditions. Her goal was not simply to return to the start gate but to regain the confidence that had made her so dominant.
That mental recovery became an important part of her broader comeback. In an essay published later in 2025, Shiffrin described some extremely low moments, including periods when she questioned whether she still wanted to race. She eventually found that reconnecting with the joy of skiing helped her move forward.
Her story demonstrates that recovery from a serious sporting accident is not always measured by how quickly an athlete returns to competition. Sometimes the biggest victories happen internally — when fear becomes manageable, confidence slowly returns and the athlete begins trusting their body again.
For Shiffrin, overcoming the psychological scars of giant slalom has been a steady process. The goal has never been to erase what happened, but to learn how to move beyond it.
And step by step, the American champion has been doing exactly that.
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