Shiffrin wins gold, thanks former coach after surprise split

MERIBEL, France — Mikaela Shiffrin covered her mouth with her fluorescent orange mittens and then collapsed to the snow, still breathing heavily as her entire body pulsated from the exertion of her gold medal-winning run.

What a relief after a hectic week for the American skier.

Having endured a small protest aimed at her by environmentalists who mistakenly thought she was using a helicopter for training, Shiffrin’s team was thrown into disarray two days before the giant slalom at the world championships when her longtime coach, Mike Day, left suddenly when Shiffrin told him she wanted to change her staff at the end of the season.

“It’s been definitely some high levels of stress these days,” Shiffrin said. “It was very, very difficult today to keep the focus and keep the intensity on the right level.”

Day had coached Shiffrin since 2016 and was with her for 65 of her 85 World Cup wins. Shiffrin needs just one more win to match Ingemar Stenmark’s overall record of 86 victories, having already broken Lindsey Vonn’s women’s mark of 82 wins.

While wins at worlds don’t count toward the World Cup totals, that was the last thing on Shiffrin’s mind Thursday.

“One thing I really want to say is just, ‘Thank you,’ to Mike for seven years of — I can’t even say helping me — he’s been such an integral part of my team and being there to support me through some of the most incredible moments in my career and some of the most challenging moments of my career and also my life,” Shiffrin said, her voice cracking with emotion.

Shiffrin has now won two straight medals after taking silver in super-G, ending an unfortunate run in major championship races. She didn’t finish three of her five individual races at last year’s Beijing Olympics and didn’t win a medal despite enormous expectations — then also didn’t finish her first race at these worlds, when she straddled three gates from the finish of the combined to throw away what would have surely been gold.

Nobody on Shiffrin’s personal team, which is also led by her mother, Eileen, who also coaches her, expected Day to react the way that he did.

“It’s just a little bit sad how it came down,” Shiffrin said, adding that she was hoping to give Day “the time and the notice” to figure out his own plans before the end of the season, but that his decision to leave immediately was “difficult for all of us to imagine” after “being such a tight group, really a family.”

The entire skiing circuit is like a family, too, with rivals on the slopes often sleeping in the same Alpine chalets and sharing dinners as they travel together all winter on what is known as the “White Circus.”

That tight-knit bond that the skiers feel for each other was evident when Federica Brignone and Ragnhild Mowinckel rushed over to congratulate Shiffrin while she was still lying on the snow, then jumped on top of her.

Brignone finished a mere 0.12 seconds behind Shiffrin to take the silver, adding to the Italian’s gold in combined, and Mowinckel of Norway finished 0.22 behind for the bronze.