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Mikaela Shiffrin says she has dealt with “intrusive thoughts” and symptoms of PTSD after crashing during a race in November 2024
She suffered a five-centimeter-deep puncture wound to her abdomen during the incident
Shiffrin tells PEOPLE she “crashed into a gate” but isn’t even sure how she sustained the wound
Mikaela Shiffrin had to overcome more than the physical pain of a puncture wound to her abdomen when she crashed while competing in a race last year.
Shiffrin, 30, tells PEOPLE that the injury, a five-centimeter deep puncture wound just one millimeter shy of her colon, took a toll on her mental health as well, leaving her with “intrusive thoughts” and symptoms of PTSD.
“It’s just been a process to recover from that physically, and mentally, more-so than I maybe expected,” says Shiffrin. “I was having a lot of actual PTSD symptoms.”
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty
Mikaela Shiffrin is carted off by medics after a crash on Nov. 30, 2024
Those symptoms included “flashbacks” and “intrusive thoughts that were pretty challenging,” she says — especially when she returned to the slopes at the end of January. “I’m getting the strength back and just continuing to work and whatnot, and keep working through things.”
Shiffrin isn’t certain how the crash even happened. “That’s the million-dollar question,” she says with a laugh. “I crashed into a gate, and we think that maybe it was either impact or a portion of some part of the gate somehow managed to create the effect of a stab wound and it went right in here,” says the Olympian, pulling up her shirt to reveal the scar.
She credits the people around her for supporting her through the recovery process. “I have a lot of support from the team around me, and as an athlete, life trains you to just work through things, so the hardest thing is to be able to stop and say, ‘This is too much, too fast.’ “
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Mikaela Shiffrin
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As she prepares for the Milan-Cortina Olympics in February, Shiffrin is keeping close a certain phrase: “You never really feel ready for something until the day after it happens.”
“That’s how I feel in most things in life,” she tells PEOPLE. “Whatever it is — if it’s a speech, if it’s anything on a stage, or if it’s skiing or racing, it’s like you’re never really ready until the day after it happens.”
Shiffrin’s decorated career includes two Olympic gold medals, one silver, and eight gold medals in the World Championships. She is also the first skier to win gold at five consecutive World Championships, and she currently holds the record for most World Cup wins in alpine skiing for men and women with 101 wins.
Read the original article on People
