The last time many Vermonters saw Mikaela Shiffrin, the Alpine ski racer was standing atop Killington’s Superstar trail, seemingly a minute away from scoring an unprecedented 100th World Cup win.

Then, figuratively and literally, she went downhill fast.

The Burke Mountain Academy graduate had snagged the lead in the first of two giant-slalom runs on Nov. 30, 2024, only to follow up by slipping, somersaulting and slamming into a fence 12 seconds from the finish line.

Some 20,000 spectators went silent as the two-time Olympic gold medalist was rushed away on a rescue sled. They and 2 million national television viewers wouldn’t learn more until the skier took to Instagram at dusk from the nearby Rutland Regional Medical Center.

“I am so sorry to scare everybody,” Shiffrin said in a selfie video as she revealed an abdominal wound with a playful “ay, ay, ay.”

Fourteen months later, the 30-year-old is again on the rise in advance of next month’s Winter Olympics in Italy. Commentators point to her opening five-race winning streak this World Cup season. People with closer ties add that just returning to competition was a feat in itself.

“She’s been the best in the world for a long time, but given everything that has happened, to stay there is one of her most impressive accomplishments,” says Willy Booker, head of Shiffrin’s alma mater in the Northeast Kingdom.

Shiffrin graduated from the grade 8-12 ski school in 2013, the same year she became the youngest U.S. woman (at 17) to win a slalom world championship. Moving on to the Olympics, she scored slalom gold in 2014 and giant slalom gold and Alpine combined silver in 2018. A year later, she became the first skier to claim World Cup victories in all six disciplines — slalom, giant slalom, parallel slalom, alpine combined, super-G and downhill.

Booker, a onetime competitor himself, was at Killington on the 2024 Thanksgiving weekend when Shiffrin rocketed through the first of two runs of the giant slalom — a race down and around a series of gates — sparking the crowd to buzz about a potential new peak: a never-before-seen 100th World Cup win.

“It was amazing, building towards this crescendo,” Booker recalls of the anticipation.

Come the second round, NBC sportscasters spoke of especially icy course conditions just before Shiffrin launched from the start at 50 mph.

“She’s nervous, she’s a little bit stiff, and why would you not be?” commentator Picabo Street said on air. “But she’s forward, she’s leaning into it.” 

That’s when Shiffrin slipped, struck two gates, lost a ski, slammed into a fence and went scarily still — all in five seconds.

Mikaela Shiffrin crashes during the second run of the Killington World Cup giant slalom on Nov. 30, 2024. Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press

“Nobody knew how bad it was,” Booker remembers of the sudden hush.

Medics transported Shiffrin about 15 miles west to Rutland Regional Medical Center, where hospital spokespeople maintained patient confidentiality even as the athlete and her crew set up cameras in the emergency room.

Shiffrin posted on social media that night, then appeared on NBC from Killington the next day.

“We’re just not totally sure how I got punctured,” she told viewers of the stab wound that missed perforating her colon by millimeters. “Very lucky to not have worse injuries.”

But Shiffrin added that it hurt to breathe, let alone move — similar to how she felt after the accidental death of her 65-year-old father in 2020 and her failure to medal after three falls in the 2022 Olympics.

After Killington, some would sit out the rest of the season, especially with the concluding world championships less than 10 weeks away. But Shiffrin was determined to return, even after fluid buildup and infection-signaling fever and chills forced her into surgery two weeks later.

Developing a step-by-step rehabilitation plan, the skier focused first on simply standing, then walking, then easy exercises and, after four weeks, stepping into ski boots and snow.

Two months after her crash, Shiffrin raced the World Cup slalom in Courchevel, France, on Jan. 30, 2025, finishing a seemingly confidence-building 10th. But she continued to struggle off the course, seeing occasional flashes of imagined stumbles and spills.

A therapist viewed the visions as signs of post-traumatic stress disorder before sharing words from the late children’s television star Mister Rogers: “What’s mentionable is manageable.” And so Shiffrin expanded her recovery efforts from body to mind.

“A lot of it is trust that with time and practice and exposure, clarity will come back,” the athlete recalled in a recent self-produced video series, “Moving Right Along,” on her YouTube channel.

Shiffrin went on to ski at the February world championships in Saalbach, Austria, placing fifth in the slalom and helping the U.S. team win a combined event. She capped the month a week later in Sestriere, Italy, by finally scoring her 100th World Cup victory.

Since then, Shiffrin has increased her World Cup total to 106. Students and staff at Burke Mountain Academy are set to watch her attempt to add to her medal count at next month’s Olympics.

“There is a huge amount of pride,” Booker says. “They go to the same school as the greatest ski racer of all time.”

One who has little else to prove — yet, in her estimation, still more to gain.

“I’ve been doing this for a while, but I’m still learning new things,” Shiffrin concluded in her video series. “There’s new exciting adventures always just around the corner, and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.”