Skiing

Mikaela Shiffrin is making her return to the slopes for the World Cup event in Courchevel, France, on Jan. 30.

See you in Courchevel @MikaelaShiffrin 🤩👑👋 #stifelusskiteam pic.twitter.com/y8v97kTHvU

— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) January 23, 2025

It will be her first competitive event since her crash in November.

"It's going to be a little bit nerve-wracking, to be honest," she said to the Associated Press' Pat Graham. "These past six weeks, every step it's like, 'Geez, should this be hurting less? Should I be better at this? Should I be more tolerant of the pain?' There are so many questions that come up in your mind of basically whether or not you're doing well enough."

During her second run at a World Cup race on Nov. 30 in Killington, Vermont, Shiffrin lost her balance and skidded to the ground. She collided with a gate before sliding into the protective fencing.

The 29-year-old suffered a puncture to her right abdomen and "severe muscle trauma." Per Graham, she also needed preventative surgery for an infection in her puncture wound.

Shiffrin told Graham the crash was "a millimeter from pretty catastrophic" since she avoided any damage to a major organ.

Because of her layoff, Shiffrin sits ninth in the slalom standings and 16th overall for the 2025 World Cup standings. She had earned back-to-back victories at events in Finland and Austria prior to the crash.

The all-time wins record-holder said to Graham that her focus in Courchevel will be getting herself back into performance shape and less about climbing onto the podium again already.

Lindsey Vonn had a successful return to the slopes in her second competitive race since 2019.

The legendary skier finished sixth in the World Cup downhill race in St. Anton, Switzerland, on Saturday. Her time of 1:16.66 was .58 seconds behind the winner, Federica Brignone of Italy.

WOW! Lindsey Vonn into 5th in her first DH back!! pic.twitter.com/AkRyAlpz5g

— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) January 11, 2025

Vonn originally announced her retirement after the 2019 World Championships. She wrapped up what was thought to be the end of her career with a bronze medal women's downhill, making her the oldest female racer to medal at the event (34 years old).

Shortly after her 40th birthday in October, Vonn announced she was coming out of retirement to rejoin the U.S. ski team. The decision came six months after she had knee replacement surgery.

The Athletic's Zack Pierce noted Vonn was the top American finisher in her discipline on Saturday.

"I feel a little bit more confident and comfortable in downhill than I do in Super-G," Vonn said after her run (h/t Pierce), "and I know this hill really well, so I knew the challenges that it had today and with the snow conditions, where I needed to execute. I still made a couple of mistakes, I know I can be faster. But I think for the first downhill race in six years, it was a pretty good start."

This was actually Vonn's second event since coming out of retirement. She previously competed in the super-G at the World Cup last month, finishing 14th.

"This was the perfect start," Vonn said about her return event. "Today is just the first step and I'm not looking for more. Today I really needed to get to the finish. I wanted to have a solid result. And that's exactly what I did."

Vonn has said her ultimate goal is to represent the United States at the 2026 Olympics in Italy. She has competed at the Winter Games four times, winning three medals. The crowning achievement of her career was winning gold in the downhill at the 2010 Olympics.

Three-time Olympic medalist Lindsey Vonn provided some insight into her final goal as she returns to alpine skiing.

Vonn confirmed on Saturday that she's targeting a trip to the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will occur in the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo.

"I've tried to keep everything in perspective and not set goals too high," Vonn said after forerunning the Stifel Birds of Prey World Cup races at Beaver Creek, Colorado. "But ultimately, if I can make it to Cortina, that would be my goal."

Lindsey Vonn gives an update on her return to competitive alpine skiing.

Watch until the end. 👀 pic.twitter.com/tbXITKWdoV

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) December 14, 2024

The 40-year-old initially stepped away from the sport after the 2019 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, but she announced plans to come out of retirement and join the U.S. Ski Team on Nov. 14.

Welcome back to the Stifel U.S. Ski Team @lindseyvonn 🇺🇸⭐️#stifelusskiteam pic.twitter.com/ETUYVRslpr

— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) November 14, 2024

Vonn's injuries played a role in her break from alpine skiing, revealing that she underwent knee replacement surgery in April. On Saturday, she detailed her recovery from the procedure.

"It feels so amazing to be back," Vonn said. "I can't tell you how big of a difference it makes to be able to ski without pain. It's a completely new world for me. I haven't felt this good in 15 years, so I'm excited to be back."

When she left the tour in 2019, her 82 World Cup wins represented a women's record at the time and she still sits at No. 2 on the all-time leaderboard behind Mikaela Shiffrin at 99.

Vonn was hand-timed at 1:34.1 as a forerunner at Beaver Creek on Saturday, which would have placed her just inside the top 20 of the eventual race (h/t Rory Jiwani of Olympics.com).

She’s baaackkk 😏

From her 2011 super-G win to forerunning the historic women’s Birds of Prey downhill, it only feels right that @lindseyvonn's comeback starts here.

She'll do it again for tomorrow’s super-G 🤘#stifelusskiteam pic.twitter.com/aKZhRAAH0I

— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) December 14, 2024

Vonn is set to compete in a pair of super-G events at the World Cup in St. Moritz, but an appearance in the Games is her ultimate goal.

Lindsey Vonn is attempting a comeback at the age of 40.

The United States Ski Team confirmed on Friday that Vonn will compete in a pair of super-G events at the World Cup in St. Moritz.

Vonn has been dropping hints for the past couple of months that she was preparing to ski in competitive events again.

"It's been an incredible past few weeks," Vonn wrote in a post on Instagram in October (h/t Peggy Shinn of SkiMag.com). "Being back in the mountains is where I find so much joy. It's my natural habitat…even if I hate being cold lol. Excited to share more (soon)."

The Olympic gold medalist hasn't competed in a formal event since the 2019 World Championships. She won a bronze medal in the women's downhill, becoming the oldest woman to medal at the event (34 years old).

Vonn also became the first woman to medal at six different World Championships. She said afterward that she was looking forward to retirement to give her mind and body time to heal and live life away from the slopes.

"I'm looking forward to just chilling out a bit and recovering everything, including my mind. It's been a lot to process. The nice thing is that, in the real world I'm actually pretty young. I have felt really old for a long time, because I'm racing with girls that are like 15 years younger than me. So now, in the real world, I'm normal. Thirty is the new 20 so I'm super young. I've got a lot to look forward to."

Vonn was dealing with a series of physical ailments at that time, including a knee injury. She announced in April that she had knee replacement surgery due to "severe tri-compartment degeneration" in her left knee.

The course at St. Moritz has been the site of five of Vonn's World Cup victories. Her 82 career wins in World Cup competition ranks second all-time among female skiers, trailing only Mikaela Shiffrin (88).

Super-G competitions will take place at St. Moritz on Dec. 21 and 22.

The United States Ski and Snowboard Team provided a health update for Mikaela Shiffrin on Sunday after she suffered multiple injuries during a crash in a giant slalom race in Killington, Vermont.

According to the update, Shiffrin suffered "a puncture wound into the right side of her abdomen and severe muscle trauma."

An update from @MikaelaShiffrin ⬇️

Following her crash in yesterday's giant slalom at the Stifel Killington Cup, Mikaela was taken down by sled and transferred by ambulance to be evaluated at Rutland Regional Medical Center.

- There was no ligament damage assessed.
- Bones and…

— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) December 1, 2024

However, there was no noticeable ligament damage and her "bones and internal organs look OK."

The update also said there is no set timetable on her return and more information will be released accordingly.

The latest information from the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team comes after Shiffrin herself provided an update Saturday.

She said there was "not really too much cause for concern at this point. I just can't move. I have a pretty good abrasion and something stabbed me."

Shiffrin also said she was "so sorry to scare everybody."

The crash came during her second run of the World Cup giant slalom race. She was leading after the first run and appeared well on her way to the 100th World Cup win of her career. She was also near the finish line on the second run when the crash occurred.

"Shiffrin stayed down on the edge of the course for quite some time as the ski patrol attended to her," Peggy Shinn of the Associated Press noted. "She was taken off the hill on a sled and waved to the cheering crowd before going to a clinic for evaluation."

Sweden's Sara Hector won the race, while Croatia's Zrinka Ljutić and Switzerland's Camille Rast took home second and third, respectively.

"It's just so sad, of course, to see Mikaela crash like that and skiing so well," Hector said on the broadcast (h/t Shinn). "It breaks my heart and everybody else here."

Shiffrin is arguably the greatest skier of all time with a resume that includes two Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, five overall World Cup titles and seven world championships. She passed Lindsey Vonn's women's record of 82 World Cup victories in January 2023 and then broke Ingemar Stenmark's overall record when she won her 87th title.

She also rarely doesn't finish a race.

As Shinn noted, she DNF's just 18 times in 274 World Cup starts and hadn't done so since January 2018.

Professional skier Jean Daniel Pession and his girlfriend, Elisa Arlian, died after falling from Monte Zerbion in Italy.

The Italian Winter Sports Federation announced the couple died Saturday while on a hike (via TMZ Sports).

Their families grew concerned when they hadn't yet returned from the hike and contacted the local authorities.

Rai News (via Owen Lavine of the Daily Beast) reported emergency personnel eventually found Pession, 28, and Arlian, 26, after hours of searching. Their cellphone signals were used to help identify the general area where they had fallen, and they were discovered not far away from the summit.

Pession, who specialized in speed skiing, competed in five FIS World Cup events across 2021 and 2022. His best finish came in March 11, 2021 in Idrefiäll, Sweden, when he placed 11th.

French skier Alexis Pinturault was airlifted from the Lauberhorn course at Wengen on Friday following a crash in a World Cup super-G race, according to the Associated Press.

The 2021 World Cup champion crashed on landing the Silberhorn jump while approaching the final section of the course. His skis detached and he slid about 164 feet down the mountain before coming to a stop.

Pinturault was airlifted to a hospital, and the race was delayed for 25 minutes following the crash. It's unclear what type of injuries he sustained.

The 32-year-old entered this season with a focus on competing in more speed events instead of slalom events. In Friday's race, the three-time Olympic medalist was chasing the time set by fellow Frenchman Cyprien Sarrazin.

Pinturault also competed on Thursday and finished ninth in the downhill at Wengen, a career-best at the course.

Pinturault competed in the 2014, 2018 and 2022 Olympics, earning a silver and two bronze medals, and he has also earned eight medals—three gold—in the World Championships.

American downhill skier Breezy Johnson confirmed she's the subject of an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

"Out of respect for my fellow racers, I have decided not to compete until the matter is resolved," she said in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

pic.twitter.com/EVpwYlUPvA

— Breezy Johnson (@_BreezyJohnson) December 9, 2023

Johnson added that "I am, and always have been, a clean athlete."

The 27-year-old cited USADA's "whereabouts" rules as the impetus for the investigation. The policy outlines an athlete's requirements for out-of-competition testing.

"Athletes are subject to testing 365 days a year and do not have "off-seasons" or cutoff periods in which testing does not occur," USADA says under its "whereabouts" section. "Whereabouts information (dates, times, locations, etc.) is information submitted to USADA by an athlete that allows the athlete to be located for out-of-competition testing."

The Associated Press noted past "whereabouts" violations have resulted in bans of up to 18 to 24 months.

Johnson finished 35th in the FIS World Cup overall standings including 11th in the downhill during the 2022-23 season. Her peak came in 2020-21, when she was 17th overall and fourth in the downhill standings.

The Wyoming native has seven career World Cup podium finishes, the most recent of which was in December 2021.

Johnson represented the United States in the 2018 Winter Oympics, competing in the super G and downhill. A knee injury prevented her from getting on the slopes four years later in Beijing.

Freestyle skier Kyle Smaine died Sunday after getting caught in an avalanche in Japan, his family told NBC News' Chantal Da Silva.

Smaine's father, William, told Da Silva the 31-year-old was skiing in Nagano Prefecture. Kyle Smaine said Sunday on Instagram he traveled to Japan annually because of the "unbelievable snow quality, non-stop storms, and really fun terrain that seems to get better" the more he was there.

Da Silva noted Japanese weather authorities had issued an avalanche warning because of the snowfall the region had received.

Per Reuters, a Nagano police spokesperson said five people were skiing on the slope of Mount Hakuba Norikura. Three people from the group made it down following the avalanche.

Grant Gunderson, a photographer for Mountain Gazette, was among the party. He said on Instagram that a skier from another group "triggered an avalanche that stepped down into a massive avalanche":

"Adam, Kyle and the other skier tried to run. Adam was buried 1.5 meters deep for 25 minutes and is unscathed. That is a miracle. The skier buried next to him died from internal injuries. Kyle was thrown 50 meters by the air blast and buried and killed.

"Another group in the area consisting of two Canadian mountain guides and 4 or 5 emergency doctors / nurses etc as clients performed the rescue. The doctors did everything they could for Kyle and the other skier."

A spokesperson said the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo was "aware of the incident in Nagano Prefecture and has been in touch with the relevant authorities to provide all appropriate assistance," per Da Silva.

Smaine was an experienced professional skier and earned a gold medal in the men's ski halfpipe at the 2015 World Championships.