Another win for Team USA! Mikaela Shiffrin took home a gold medal after she won in the giant slalom event during the 2018 Winter Olympics on Wednesday, February 14.
After delays due to inclement weather, Shiffrin and her fellow competitors finally took to the slopes. Shiffrin placed first after coming in .39 seconds ahead of Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway. Federica Brignone of Italy would ultimately take bronze.
The 22-year-old celebrated at the bottom of the course following her stellar performance at the Yongpyong Alpine Center in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“I don’t know when it was, at some point today after the first run I thought, like, ‘I can really win this.’ I just tried to hang on to that feeling and then focus on my skiing a bit,” Shiffrin told reporters after her win. “It’s crazy. There’s so much emotion.”
Shiffrin also reacted to her win on social media afterward. “Stars in the right hand, stripes in the left.. make sure it’s right side up.. careful with the wind.. don’t drop it!.. Okay okay, all set.. cool.. now SMILE!!” she captioned an Instagram pic of herself holding the American flag.
Let it all out, Mikaela. You’re a gold medalist once again. #WinterOlympics #BestOfUS https://t.co/YtEpNzDMDu pic.twitter.com/PYPAFqAiZF
— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 15, 2018
Shiffrin previously opened up on how she was planning to stay focused at the Winter Games. “I feel like I’m pretty well in control about where I’m at mentally with my nerves right now, not to say that I won’t be nervous for the first race of the season or when the Olympics get closer, but last year I went through sort of a transition where my expectations were one thing, but I started to hear and listen to the expectations of other people,” she exclusively told Us Weekly. “That actually started to weigh on me a little bit more and I had to actually, during the season last year, I had to re-evaluate my own goals and my own expectations and remind myself that in the past those goals were the only things that were important to me and I have to go back to that mindset in order to stay sane in the sport.”
She added: “I’m trying to just focus on making myself proud and making the people I’m closest to proud and the team around me.”
Shiffrin won gold in the Ladies’ Slalom event at Sochi in 2014.
