Here’s a story that defies all odds and challenges what we think we know about Olympic glory: Two skiers who have never won a World Cup race just became Olympic champions. Yes, you read that right. Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber, both without a single World Cup victory to their names, claimed gold in the brand-new team combined event at the Milan Cortina Games. But here’s where it gets controversial—their win came after skiing superstar Mikaela Shiffrin, the most decorated World Cup racer in history with 108 victories, faltered in the final moments, finishing fourth and extending her medal drought to seven straight Olympic races. And this is the part most people miss: Shiffrin’s teammate, Breezy Johnson, had set the stage for a potential U.S. victory with a strong first run, but it wasn’t enough to secure the podium.
The team combined event, a thrilling blend of speed and precision, pairs one skier for the downhill run and another for the slalom, with their combined times determining the winner. Raedler delivered a stellar second-place finish in the downhill, while Huber’s 10th-fastest slalom leg sealed the deal for Austria. Meanwhile, Germany’s Kira Weidle-Winkelmann and Emma Aicher took silver, and the U.S. duo of Paula Moltzan and Jacqueline Wiles earned bronze—both Wiles and Moltzan securing their first Olympic medals.
Shiffrin’s struggle is particularly striking. After dominating her first two Olympics with two golds and a silver, she’s now gone medal-less in her last 13 Olympic races, including all six in Beijing four years ago. Before her run, she was told over team radio, ‘No tricks here at all. Actually, it’s nothing to report. You got it.’ But Shiffrin lost time at every checkpoint, finishing just 0.31 seconds behind the leaders and a mere 0.06 seconds off a medal. In the finish area, Johnson embraced her, while the Austrians celebrated their unexpected triumph.
‘For me, it was sure that Mikaela could do it,’ Huber said. ‘In the end, it was really a surprise gold medal for us.’ Aicher, one of the few all-around skiers competing in every event, added a silver to her individual downhill medal. Weidle-Winkelmann summed it up perfectly: ‘Usually, Mikaela is the best slalom skier, and we expected her to be super good today, too. But this is slalom. You never know.’
Shiffrin still has her individual giant slalom and slalom events ahead, but the question lingers: Can she break her Olympic medal drought, or is the pressure of her legacy becoming too much to bear? What do you think? Is Shiffrin’s struggle a testament to the unpredictability of sports, or a sign of something deeper? Let’s discuss in the comments!
