Mikaela Shiffrin Overcomes Illness to Win 4th Straight Slalom World Title
Mikaela Shiffrin overcame illness to win her fourth straight slalom world title on Saturday at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Are, Sweden:
The American was in third place after the first run but went on to take gold by 0.58 seconds from Sweden's Anna Swenn-Larsson.
It's Shiffrin's third medal of the championships so far and her second gold. She claimed victory in the super-G and won bronze in the giant slalom.
Here's a look at Shiffrin's winning run:
Shiffrin told Eurosport (h/t CNN) after the victory she has had a lung infection and explained how it had affected her performances:
"I think that I maybe have a small infection in my lungs. I've never had this before, it's tough to breathe without coughing.
"But everyone around me today was helping to much to make it so that I could breathe when I needed to and then halfway down this run, I ran out of oxygen.
"I was just trying to fight to stay in the course if I could and do by very best but it was tough today. My skiing, especially in the second run, was really good, I was pushing really hard.
"I don't want people to think, like: 'Oh, I'm sick and I won.' I mean, I was really pushing and maybe I couldn't have done better if I was feeling normal."
The 23-year-old's resilient performance earned her plaudits:
Shiffrin also explained how her mother had given her advice before her second run, per Nate Clark at NBC Sports.
"My mom said to me before the second run, 'You don't have to do this.' I was coughing so hard that my stomach was in spasms, and I couldn't breathe, and then I kept coughing more.
"At what point do you say, No, I can't do 60 seconds of skiing. I'm out here. I want to do it and whether I win or not, I just wanted to try. And when she said, 'You don't have to,' then I was sure that I wanted to."
Despite her difficulties, Shiffrin put in a near-faultless second run to finish ahead of Swenn-Larsson. Slovakia's Petra Vlhova picked up the bronze medal.