Mikaela Shiffrin captured Olympic gold in the women’s slalom on Wednesday at the Winter Games in Cortina, ending an eight-year medal drought and securing the third Olympic title of her career.
The 30-year-old American posted a combined two-run time of 1min 39.10sec on the Olympia delle Tofane course in the Dolomites, finishing 1.50sec ahead of Switzerland’s Camille Rast.
With the victory, Shiffrin became the first US skier to win three Olympic gold medals and claimed her first Olympic medal since the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
Her triumph also provided a measure of relief for the US ski team after a challenging start to the Games.
Wearing the No 7 bib, Shiffrin established control early with an opening run of 47.13sec, despite briefly clipping a gate midway down the course.
She recovered immediately and finished 0.82sec ahead of Germany’s Lena Duerr, building the largest first-run lead in an Olympic women’s slalom in 66 years.
No other competitor came within a second of her opening time.
On her second run, Shiffrin maintained her advantage to secure victory by a wide margin, marking the largest winning gap in any Olympic alpine skiing event since 1998.
Rast, the reigning world champion and the only skier to defeat Shiffrin in slalom competition this season, earned silver, the first medal of these Games for the Swiss women’s team.
Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson took bronze, claiming the first Olympic medal of her career.
Shiffrin’s gold marked her second Olympic slalom title, 12 years after she became the youngest winner of the event at the Sochi Games.
Her Olympic record also includes giant slalom gold and combined silver in Pyeongchang.
The result erased memories of the Beijing Games, where she failed to medal in six races and did not finish three.
She arrived in Cortina in strong form, having already secured the World Cup slalom title this season and extended her all-time World Cup wins record to 108.
The victory capped a difficult Olympic campaign for the US team, whose Games were overshadowed by Lindsey Vonn’s crash and leg injury in the opening downhill race.