Olympic and world slalom champion Mikaela Shiffrin said she will return to World Cup skiing next week in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, after a knee injury sidelined her for two months.
Shiffrin moved up her comeback when a slalom was organized for next Monday at Crans-Montana. The American racer said Monday on her Facebook page: “See ya in a week!” Originally, she was targeting a March return for the World Cup finals in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
With only three slalom races left — along with a parallel event this month in Stockholm that counts in the slalom standings — the three-time defending champion still has a slim mathematical chance to retain her crown in the discipline. She trails slalom leader Frida Hansdotter of Sweden by 305 points.
Shiffrin won two slalom races this season — both in Aspen, Colorado, and both by big margins — before tearing a ligament and bruising a bone in her right knee while training for a giant slalom in Sweden two months ago. Her right ski slipped and then her knee buckled, before hitting some grippy snow that caused her to hyperextend her knee and skid into the protective netting.
“I never thought that I would have an injury because I have always worked as hard as I can to prevent injuries,” Shiffrin said in a release through her ski sponsor, Atomic. “I rarely fall when I’m skiing. If I’m scared in a situation, training or racing, I would tend to slow myself down before taking the risks and crash hard.
“I am lucky that I hurt two of the things in my knee that can heal on their own really well. If I had hurt my ACL or meniscus and needed surgery, I think this would have been a lot more difficult for me. But I have thought about my knee like a big cut on my leg or something.”
While away, she said she watched every men’s and women’s World Cup race.
“I would pretend that I was skiing it and figure out how I might ski it differently than the other girls,” said Shiffrin, who turns 21 on March 13.
Shiffrin returned to snow in late January, with some easy drills. Steadily, she ramped up her training and recently went through gates.
“I had to keep my speeds really slow so I didn’t put too much force through the joint,” explained Shiffrin, who will train in Colorado until later this week before flying to Switzerland. “We just wanted to see how my knee responded to being on skis and snow before putting energy into the ski.”
She said she never really considered sitting out, even though it could’ve protected her starting position for 2016-17.
“No matter how it effects my start order, I would really regret knowing that I was 100 percent and ready to race and decided not to anyway,” Shiffrin said. “I’m a racer at heart. I belong in the starting gate.”
AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Switzerland contributed.
