Shiffrin pairs with Johnson to win team combined at world champs
Marco Trovati/AP photo
Mikaela Shiffrin teamed up with childhood friend Breezy Johnson to win gold in the new team combined event at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships on Tuesday in Saalbach, Austria. With the victory, the Edwards skier tied Christl Cranz for the most world championship medals (15) ever and moved her into second on the all-time gold medal list (8).
“I’m inspired by this event actually, which is something (that’s) a little unanticipated,” Shiffrin said. “Feeling like we’re doing it together was so cool.”
The team’s two-run combined time — adding Johnson’s downhill to Shiffrin’s slalom — was 2 minutes, 40.89 seconds. The American’s first of four squads finished 0.39 ahead of the Swiss pair of Lara Gut-Behrami and Wendy Holdener as Austrians Stephanie Venier and Katharina Truppe took bronze. The victory capped off a wild four days for Johnson, who was the surprise downhill champion on Saturday.
“It’s definitely pretty crazy — definitely still hasn’t sunk in yet,” Johnson said. “Today was probably more pressure with just wanting to do something for someone who has been such a huge part of my career.”
Shiffrin originally planned to skip the team event in order to focus on defending her giant slalom title, but changed her plans Monday. The Edwards skier told the Associated Press she was “mentally blocked in being able to get to the next level of pace and speed and putting power into the turns” while working back from a Nov. 30 crash in Killington that left her with a deep puncture wound on the side of her abdomen.
“And that kind of mental, psychological like PTSD-esque struggle is more than I anticipated,” Shiffrin stated. In a social media post Monday, Shiffrin further discussed the “mental obstacles” she’s been working through in her return to racing and also expressed gratefulness to be paired with Johnson, whom she met as an 11-year-old ski racer.
Shiffrin said the two were “a little bit lost in a world where young girls were not really supposed to be as ambitious as we were.” Since then, they’ve been roommates and teammates on everything from the Whistler Cup to the World Cup. Shiffrin said Johnson eased her anxiety going into her 18th world championship start on Tuesday.
“She was like, ‘hey, it’s not for the medal, do it because this is crazy fun; do it because you like skiing and because you want to be here,'” Shiffrin told FIS.
“I wanted to help her because I feel like she deserves it,” Johnson added. “After everything that she’s been through, and all the ways that she’s helped me from when I was just a little kid.”
Johnson flew down the Zwolferkogel course in a time of 1 minute, 42.11 seconds, 0.51 behind leader Lauren Macuga, who was paired with fellow American and former Ski and Snowboard Club Vail athlete Paula Moltzan.
“Last run on this hill, and I knew I had to make it count,” Macuga told U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s Sierra Ryder. “In the start I was thinking about Paula and how I needed to put my best skiing out there.” Moltzan could only muster the 15th-best slalom mark as the second U.S. team slid into fourth. Slalom aces Katharina Liensberger and Lena Duerr also struggled, with the Austrian dropping her team from third to fifth and the German going from second to 17th.
Lindsey Vonn and A.J. Hurt placed 21st, fourth-best for the U.S.
“It was not a fast run. I honestly, I can’t tell you what is going wrong. I was in my tuck pretty much the whole way down and just not accelerating anywhere at any point in time,” Vonn said after finishing 2.51 seconds behind Macuga. “I have a year to figure it out, and I think I will, but right now, it’s hard to really change, you know, your entire setup while you’re racing the World Championship.”
Shiffrin will have a chance to get a record-setting 16th world championship medal in Saturday’s slalom. Holdener — who was 0.39 seconds ahead of Shiffrin on Tuesday — is likely her biggest threat.
“I knew I had to go full gas if we wanted to fight for a medal,” said Holdener, who moved her team up 10 places. “I’m happy. It worked out, let’s say it that way.”
Shiffrin had won five-straight World Cup slaloms before her injury. After a 60-day absence from the circuit, she placed 10th in Courchevel on Jan. 30.
“Since Courchevel, I’ve been saying it’s scary, but I want to be here. And in the last the last two weeks, I haven’t felt that a lot. I haven’t felt like I wanted to be here,” Shiffrin said, adding that racing feels too “terrifying.”
“And so to hear her (Johnson) talking about this, like, ‘no, no, it’s fun’. And she’s throwing herself down this downhill, fearless, like the wind… and I’m like, OK, so (it’s going to be) nerve wracking, there’s going to be all the emotions, but there is fun in this, and let’s do it together,” Shiffrin continued. “She really lifted me up to be able to fully take on this day.”
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