Mikaela Shiffrin avoids major injury in ski crash
Sports
Shiffrin lost control during a jump and slammed into safety netting at a high rate of speed
Flachau, Austria (Reuters) - Skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin avoided a serious injury Friday after crashing during a World Cup downhill race at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
Shiffrin lost control during a jump and slammed into safety netting at a high rate of speed.
Shiffrin was attended to on the course and eventually limped off with her left leg raised above the snow. She was taken away into a helicopter and taken to an evaluation site and then was transported to a nearby hospital.
A picture posted later in the day by Shiffrin showed a wrap on her left knee. "Initial analysis shows the ACL and PCL seem intact," Shiffrin's team said in a statement. Shiffrin, 28, was thankful she wasn't hurt worse.
"Thank you everyone for your support and well wishes," Shiffrin wrote on her social media sites.
"At this point I'm just taking it day by day, and I'll share more information or updates as I know more. Very thankful it's not worse, but I'm pretty sore at the moment. I won't be skiing the rest of this weekend, and I won't be skiing (at the next event) in Kronplatz.
"Beyond that, it's quite hard to say right now. Need a little time to process with my team and see how everything is feeling in the coming days! Thank you all!"
The course Shiffrin crashed on is the same one that will be used in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.
Shiffrin is the winningest World Cup ski racer (men or women) with 95 victories. She is a three-time Olympian and won gold medals in 2014 (slalom) and 2018 (giant slalom).
