Shiffrin and her women’s team combined partner Breezy Johnson were favored for gold
Mikaela Shiffrin had a surprisingly lackluster race to keep her and teammate Breezy Johnson off the podium in the first-ever Olympic women’s team combined event Tuesday, but it secured bronze for their fellow Team USA duo Jacqueline Wiles and Paula Moltzan.
Johnson, 30, had put her and Shiffrin, also 30, in first with her speedy downhill run, but Shiffrin struggled to find her speed during her slalom run on Tuesday, Feb. 10. Their combined score earned them a fourth-place finish and knocked them out of a medal, shocking the world considering Shiffrin’s typical dominance.
With Shiffrin’s fumbled run, the final of the day, their teammates Wiles and Moltzan captured bronze and celebrated on the podium, jumping for joy.
The 2026 Milan Cortina Games mark the debut of the alpine skiing combined event. In this new format, two athletes from the same nation compete, one in a single downhill run and the other in a single slalom run, and then their scores are combined for the final result.
Johnson — who won gold in the women’s downhill event on Sunday — and Shiffrin had won the world title last winter in the 2025 FIS World Alpine Ski Championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, where the combined event first debuted, and were expected to repeat in Cortina.
Shiffrin, though, has yet to be able to continue her absolute dominance from the World Cup circuit — where she’s won a whopping 108 golds — at the Olympics. She won gold in slalom at the 2014 Sochi Games, and a gold in giant slalom and a silver in combined at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
Johnson said Sunday that she’s “really excited for the team combined” after her gold medal win. “I’m excited to get another crack down the slope. I think it could be a really good event for us.”
Following Johnson’s first gold medal victory, the skiing star disclosed that her USA teammate Lindsey Vonn, who was evacuated from the mountain to a nearby hospital where she underwent emergency surgery on her leg after suffering a horrific crash during her run just one week after rupturing her ACL, was supporting her from the helicopter.
I wish for the best for her,” Johnson told reporters, adding that she hopes Vonn’s injury isn’t “too terrible.” “Her coach said she was rooting for me in the chopper,” Johnson added.
“I feel terrible for her. Regarding her teammate, Johnson remarked, “It’s such a brutal sport sometimes.”
Check out the continuous coverage before, during and after the games at people.com to find out more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls. Watch the Olympics and Paralympics in Milan Cortina on Peacock and NBC starting on February 6.
