Olympic slalom champion Mikaela Shiffrin of EagleVail is going home to the United States for medical care after injuring her right knee while warming up for a World Cup giant slalom in Are, Sweden.
“I am flying home tomorrow for a complete evaluation,” Shiffrin wrote on Facebook on Saturday. “I have at least MCL (medial collateral ligament) injury and bone bruising, hopefully no additional injury. Full diagnosis and recovery predictions after I’ll see a doctor at home.”
Shiffrin crashed during a warm-up session on the competition hill and missed Saturday’s race.
“She basically flipped over into the net,” Shiffrin’s manager, Kilian Albrecht, told The Associated Press.
She will also miss Sunday’s slalom, and it’s unclear whether she will be able to return in time for a giant slalom in Courchevel, France, next weekend.
The U.S. Ski Team did not immediately issue a statement on Shiffrin’s status, as per team policy to await full injury details.
She was taken to a hospital in Ostersund, Albrecht said.
The 20-year-old Shiffrin won the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Games, and at the last two world championships.
Shiffrin also won the opening two slaloms this season in Aspen last month — one of them by 3.07 seconds, the largest margin of victory in World Cup history for the women’s discipline.
