The 2026 Winter Olympics ended in heartbreak for one of the United States’ two women’s skiing legends competing at these Games, as Lindsey Vonn — skiing on a torn ACL — crashed and broke her leg, requiring multiple surgeries to fix.
These Olympics haven’t gone so swimmingly for Mikaela Shiffrin, either. She struggled mightily in the slalom portion of the team combined as the United States narrowly missed the podium, and she only managed to finish 11th in the Giant Slalom. The 30-year-old will be looking for some redemption in Wednesday’s slalom, her final medal opportunity in what could be her final Olympics.
The first runs will begin at 4 a.m. ET (10 a.m. local), with the second run starting at 7:30 a.m. ET (1:30 p.m. local). Whichever athlete has the fastest combined time between the two runs will ultimately take home gold.
Shiffrin, a 71-time World Cup slalom winner, is a -185 favorite to take home her second slalom gold at DraftKings Sportsbook. Switzerland’s Camille Rast (+550) has the second-shortest odds, and Germany’s Emma Aicher (+800) ranks third.
Women’s Slalom prediction, pick
Shiffrin had an uncharacteristically awful performance in the slalom aspect of the team combined, finishing with just the 15th-fastest time after downhill gold medalist Breezy Johnson had put Team USA into the lead with her downhill run. It’s hard to underestimate how much of a surprise Shiffrin’s struggles were; in her eight World Cup slalom races this season, she’s won seven times and finished as the runner-up to Rast in the lone exception. In fact, Shiffrin has been the overall World Cup champion in the discipline nine times in her career and finished second thrice. Her only precedent for her failure at during the team combined was her failure at the 2022 Games, when she skied off the course in both Slalom and Giant Slalom.
Frankly, Shiffrin’s lack of recent Olympic success is confounding. For all of her dominance in the World Cup, Shiffrin has only medaled in slalom once at the Olympics — 12 years ago. She’s also only medaled in giant slalom, where she’s also the all-time World Cup leader in wins, once (in 2018). Her 11th-place finish in the giant slalom final was her second-worst result of the season. It’s hard to say that Shiffrin isn’t still near the peak of her powers — during the most recent World Cup race, she finished 1.67 seconds ahead of Rast, a larger gap than that between Rast and the two women who tied for seventh — but for some reason, this event has treated her comparatively poorly. The venue likely won’t do her any favors: she finished third during her lone race at Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2021, losing to the currently-injured Katharina Liensberger and Petra Vlhova (+3500).
Betting against Shiffrin, especially in slalom, is a fool’s errand, but at -185, she just isn’t worth the risk, especially as she faces the pressure of salvaging what has been a disappointing Olympics. The better value bet could be on Emma Aicher, who won silver in the downhill and team combined after going 0.03 seconds faster than any other athlete during the slalom portion. While she’s been somewhat inconsistent this season, failing to finish the course three times, she also has three podium appearances in eight tries, including a third-place finish in her most recent race.
