One slalom event didn’t just result in a medal; it reshaped how the world will remember the most decorated women’s American skier in Olympic history.
Gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin of Team United States celebrates on the podium during the medal ceremony following the Women’s Slalom Run on day twelve of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics at Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre on February 18, 2026 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. (Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Published February 18, 2026 03:01PM
Sports narratives are terribly unfair.
They rob athletes of their humanity by reducing a person’s value to a collection of medals or numbers on a statistics sheet. They distort. They simplify. As a pesky journalist who regularly trades in sports narratives, I can say with some authority that they often suck.
And yet—these storylines are usually the clearest and cleanest way for tens of millions of people to make sense of and appreciate a famous athlete’s journey through life. Alas, that’s what the Olympic Games are all about.
Case in point: Mikaela Shiffrin winning the Olympic title in the Slalom event on February 18. Shiffrin skied her heart out in both the first and second runs to take a dominant victory in the event, winning her fourth career Olympic medal (three of them gold). She’s now the most decorated women’s American skier in Olympic history, placing her one medal ahead of Lindsey Vonn.
The gold in Cortina elevates Shiffrin into a completely different pantheon of American Olympic heroes. She’s won medals at three Games, and at age 30 she doesn’t seem to be slowing down. In terms of pure medals and fame, she’s entered the realm of America’s Olympic superstars: think speedskater Bonnie Blair, swimmer Nathalie Coughlin, runner Allyson Felix, and others. These athletes, with their blend of success, celebrity, and longevity, are forever part of America’s Olympic fabric.
But back to the Shiffrin storyline in Cortina. As I write this column, pesky sportswriters continue to churn out narratives of Shiffrin burying demons, exorcising ghosts, or slaying dragons by skiing faster down a mountain than her peers. “Mikaela Shiffrin Takes Her Olympic Revenge” is the title of the Wall Street Journal’s story on her victory.
Whether or not Shiffrin deep down inside feels as though she has slayed a dragon or achieved revenge is irrelevant, of course. What’s most important to our collective understanding of Shiffrin is that, by winning, she has steered her Olympic arc—and, most importantly, her sports narrative—onto a different trajectory.
Shiffrin, of course, is the most decorated skier on the Alpine World Cup, with 108 World Cup victories and 8 World Championship wins. This is a huge deal to your buddy who loves ski racing, and to anyone who lives in Austria.
But the Olympics, of course, is when the general American public hoovers up these niche sports and their traditions and champions. After the 2022 Games in Beijing, where Shiffrin raced in six events, finished just three of them, and won zero medals, her Olympic narrative was headed off a cliff. I’m sure you remember the stories about Shiffrin’s struggles with anxiety and depression, not to mention the tonnage of think pieces that flooded the web.
With her win in Cortina, Shiffrin’s sports narrative now has a shape to it that any American fan can recognize and appreciate. Picture an upward-facing line that dips in the middle before continuing its trajectory to its previous height. This is the shape of the sports redemption story.
Think LeBron James winning the 2016 NBA Finals for Cleveland after blowing two in a row. Think Peyton Manning winning the 2016 Super Bowl after losing it in 2010 and 2014. Think Chris Evert winning the 1981 Wimbledon title after five years of heartbreak. All of these athletes achieved towering heights, then got their teeth kicked in by the competition, only to regroup, refocus, and return to the top.
Sportswriters love this arc, and it’s no secret why. It keeps readers engaged. It provides humanity to a person who trains, recovers, and races for a living. It tickles some bulb of synapses in the recesses of our brains. In many ways, an athlete who redeems herself is far more relatable than one who simply dominates her sport from one Olympic cycle to the next.
It’s also worth contemplating what Shiffrin’s Olympic storyline would have been had she bombed in Cortina. That, of course, is the arc of the athlete who achieved great things early but never reached those heights again. Think Aaron Rodgers. Or, that of the athlete who kicks butt in the regular season, only to wilt in the playoffs. Karl Malone or Dan Marino. Shiffrin could win 150 World Cup races and still be remembered as an athlete who, for whatever reason, won fewer Olympic medals than many of her peers.
But those fears are over. And so is my spiel about sports narratives. I worry that it’s already distorting our view of Mikaela Shiffrin.
