Sports
With World Cup in her backyard, Mikaela Shiffrin and Aleksander Kilde — skiing’s golden couple — focus on recovery
This wasn’t the way alpine skiing aficionados drew it up when they scheduled men’s and women’s speed races on the famed Birds of Prey course in Beaver Creek, Colo., on back-to-back weekends this month.
They figured the events held major potential for a celebration of the sport’s golden couple: American Mikaela Shiffrin, who might be closing in on her record 100th World Cup win, and her fiancé, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway, arguably the best speed skier in the world, both making the podium just a few miles from Shiffrin’s home down the road in Edwards.
That was Plan A. Not happening as Kilde announced in October he’d miss the entire World Cup season due to injuries sustained in a January crash.
On the bright side, Shiffrin is up on her feet and walking again after a crash of her own over Thanksgiving weekend in a World Cup giant slalom race in Vermont that left her banged and cut up and with a significant puncture wound in her abdomen. She is sidelined indefinitely, though she expects to be back before too long. Last weekend, she shot a video while walking carefully outside her home.
“I got my trusty little wound vacuum, we got it put in yesterday,” she said, showing off the gadget that can accelerate healing by decreasing air pressure over a wound, pulling out fluid and dead tissue and reducing swelling. “This is where I’m at,” she added with a look of reluctant acceptance as she stepped gingerly on an icy mountain street.
An update from Mikaela Shiffrin about her injury from the Killington World Cup race. pic.twitter.com/jTUIqyeZ12
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) December 7, 2024
Shiffrin’s latest injury also killed Plan B, which was for Kilde, who has spent nearly a year recovering from the major crash 11 months ago in Switzerland, to help coach Shiffrin this weekend on Beaver Creek’s Birds of Prey track — where he won three years ago and where she had never competed. Instead, he’s been coaching her in the art of patience and recovery.
Kilde has had to become an expert in that, unfortunately. The January crash wrecked his left shoulder, ripping muscles from the joint. It also left a deep gash in his right calf, courtesy of one of his skis. Then, in July, out of nowhere, an infection raged through his surgically repaired shoulder. He was on the edge of sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s immune system overreacts to an infection, damaging the body’s tissues and organs.
His heart racing, his shoulder swelling, his fever spiking, he went to the emergency room during a visit with Shiffrin in Colorado. Doctors took one look at him and told him he wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
There are few sports that test an athlete’s ability to manage injuries the way alpine skiing does. It has basically a 100 percent injury rate. So many of its top performers have missed full seasons or more to recover from ghastly bone breaks, torn ligaments, ruptured joints, concussions and everything else that can happen during high-speed crashes on ice while clamped into long, sharp-edged carbon boards. Skiers are good at doing the thumbs-up Instagram post from their hospital bed, but recovery and rehabilitation is anything but a happy process.
Shiffrin, 29, has been pretty lucky so far during her storied career, though last season she missed six weeks while recovering from damage to her knee ligaments that she suffered during a downhill race on the Olympia delle Tofane course in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, where the 2026 women’s Olympic competition will take place. She returned in time to capture another season slalom title, but the experience taxed her brain as much as her body.
“When you’re injured, whether it’s for nine months or eight weeks, you’re watching the world carry on without you being in a space where you are supposed to be, and that’s frustrating,” she said during an interview this fall before the start of the season. “There are so many moments of doubt when you feel pain or weakness, when it’s like, ‘I don’t know that I can do that.’”
Mikaela Shiffrin was seeking her 100th World Cup event win in Killington, Vermont, when she crashed and suffered an injury. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
That’s basically been Kilde’s life since his January crash.
The damage to both his shoulder and his leg left him wheelchair-bound for weeks, since he couldn’t use crutches. Kilde has been called “the Arnold Schwarzenegger of skiing” for his strength. His being too weak to get out of a wheelchair is a difficult image to conjure.
The gash in his calf severed nerves. For months, he could not make his foot and toes move the way he wanted them to. Sometimes his toes would just hang like appendages. Only in late spring did he begin to think that his foot would eventually work properly again, though he still hasn’t regained much feeling in the toes.
For months he felt like he had no purpose in his life.
“You lose your job and you’re injured, you can’t even do anything,” he said. “I can’t work on my shoulder which needed to be worked on. I can’t work on my leg which needed to be worked on. I can’t even be in the sun because of antibiotics. I had to be indoors. Just a really, really boring life, honestly.”
A few weeks in, he realized he needed to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning, especially since this recovery was going to take a while. So he looked into finding some way to stimulate his mind.
Kilde may be a two-time Olympic medalist with 48 World Cup podiums, but by some measures he is the black sheep of his very educated family. His father is an engineer. His mother is a nurse. His brother is a finance executive. He has a high school education, and for the last couple of years, he has largely focused on being outdoors and his athletic career. It had been a long time since he had to study. And even longer since he was interested in studying.
Aleksander Kilde gets evacuated by helicopter after a crash at a World Cup event in Wengen, Switzerland, in January. He’s still recovering. (Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images)
He does have an interest in real estate, though. So he signed up for an eight-week online course in real estate and finance through the London School of Economics. There were a series of modules to complete each week, plus assignments and tasks, a final project and a certificate at the end.
The course description said the work would take up roughly 10 hours each week. He said it took him at least 20. He hadn’t worked with mathematical formulas in 15 years.
He said he learned plenty about his investments, but more than that, he learned something about himself.
“Reading and learning is really something that can give you a lot of energy,” he said. “I never thought of it like that before. I felt like I didn’t need it. But I think now, just always strive to learn. It’s really something that is good for you. Not only for your mental capacity but also for your mental health. It’s very nice to know things.”
It will be nice to ski again, too. He’s been cleared to get back on snow, but just for free skiing. He can’t go fast. He can’t crash. He needs another operation on his shoulder since doctors had to remove a lot of the work that had been done when they were trying to rid his body of the infection.
The next surgery will be the one that will make a comeback possible. For now, he can basically live a normal life. He just can’t ski race. To set himself up for that, he’s been paying close attention to his diet, cutting out alcohol and most sugar, making sure to eat quality meats and other proteins, biding his time for the opportunity to be able to do the thing that he has dedicated most of his life to. And if he needs his speed rush, he’s got a nice Audi that can go from zero to 60 pretty fast.
“And that’s fine,” he said.
His fiancée still has to work on her patience as she manages through her latest injury. She can be a little less zen than him at times, especially when she is on the sidelines, waiting to be healthy enough to get back into the starting hut at the top of the hill.
Then again, this one’s a little different.
“I’ve been impaled,” she announced in a video she posted on social media days after her crash.
You don’t get to say that every day. Not even when you’re an alpine skier.
GO DEEPER
Lindsey Vonn, at 40, returns to competitive skiing, earns World Cup eligibility
(Top photo of Aleksander Kilde and Mikaela Shiffrin: Alain Grosclaude / Agence Zoom / Getty Images)
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LAS VEGAS – Finn Balor and Dominik Mysterio were once brothers in arms in the Judgment Day. The two helped the faction run “Monday Night Raw” for several years.
As championships and opportunities came and went, the rift between Balor and Mysterio grew. It came to a head when Balor caused Mysterio to lose the Intercontinental Championship to Penta. Balor leaving the Judgment Day left Mysterio and Liv Morgan as the leaders with JD McDonagh, Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez sticking around.
Finn Balor is introduced before his match against Dominik Mysterio during WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev., on April 19, 2026. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
The latter four chose to ride with Mysterio and attacked Balor on one episode of Raw.
The bitter war led to a match Sunday night at WrestleMania 42. To make matters more interesting, Raw General Manager Adam Pearce made the match a street fight hours before the show was set to begin.
Balor had vowed to bring the “Demon” out and he certainly did.
JACOB FATU PUTS DREW MCINTYRE IN THE ‘REAR VIEW’ IN UNSANCTIONED MATCH AT WRESTLEMANIA 42
Finn Balor is introduced before his match against Dominik Mysterio during WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev., on April 19, 2026. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Balor made his way to the ring in his “Demon” gear, dripping with red and black paint. Mysterio was in a mask with other Mysterio supporters.
The two then proceeded to beat the crud out of each other.
Mysterio wrapped Balor’s head in between a chair and hit a 619 on him. He tried to pin Balor, but to no avail. At another point, Mysterio tossed Balor through a table set up in the corner.
As many have learned, it’s hard to keep your demons down. Mysterio learned the hard way.
Balor would not give up. Balor clotheslined Mysterio, hit him with a chair multiple times before wrapping his head in between the chair and drop-kicking him into the corner. Balor put Mysterio onto a table and hit the Coup de Grâce for the win.
Dominik Mysterio is introduced before his match against Finn Balor during WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev., on April 19, 2026. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
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Balor excised his own demons, while Mysterio is still haunted.
DENVER — What do you know? The once-stampeding Dodgers have been caged by the Colorado Rockies.
With a 9-6 loss Sunday at Coors Field, the two-time defending World Series champions lost back-to-back games for the first time this season. The Dodgers again couldn’t hold a lead, letting the Rockies tee off for 15 hits.
Nor could the Dodgers keep up offensively at the hitter-friendly park — though they put some pressure on in the ninth inning, when Shohei Ohtani led off with a ground-rule double and the Dodgers scored twice to cut the lead to three runs. Then the new guy, Ryan Ward, made the final out in his big league debut, robbed of a hit and a chance to keep chipping away by a diving Troy Johnston in right field.
Before that, the Rockies — who beat the Dodgers twice in 13 meetings all of last season — chased starter Roki Sasaki from the game in the fifth inning and then ruffled the Dodgers’ relievers. That included closer Edwin Díaz, who came on in the eighth and promptly gave up three singles, a walk and two runs before being pulled with the Dodgers trailing 8-4.
Dodgers starting pitcher Roki Sasaki gave up three runs on seven hits in 4-2/3 innings Sunday against the Rockies in Denver.
(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
He and Blake Treinen combined to face eight batters without getting an out.
“They both weren’t sharp,” said manager Dave Roberts, who had theories but not many answers — though he did have real concern, especially about Díaz, who recently had his right knee checked out by the medical staff.
Roberts said the closer wanted to pitch after nine days off, even though it wasn’t a save situation. But his velocity was slightly down (95.4 mph vs. 95.8) and so, “today was a tough evaluation,” the manager said.
“It really was,” Roberts said. “Because, you know, I know what it’s supposed to look like, and when it doesn’t look like that, it gets a little concerning, really.”
And losing for the second time to the Rockies, who are now 9-13? Being in danger of losing their four-game series, after arriving in Denver without having lost to a National League opponent, against a club that hasn’t made the postseason since 2018?
It’s well below the bar the Dodgers have set, and it added a bitter note to Ward’s otherwise sweet debut.
Ward punched a big league clock for the first time wearing No. 67 and cranked his first hit off Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen in the fourth inning, lining a changeup to right field for a single that scored Andy Pages, made it 3-0 and got the 20-some members of Ward’s party up, jumping in place, hugging and high-fiving.
“When I was on first base, I got to see them all jumping around up there,” Ward said. “That was a pretty special moment.”
He also singled in the sixth and swung on the first pitch in his first at-bat, a fly out in the third inning.
The Dodgers gave Sasaki a 2-0 lead in the third. Alex Freeland drove in Hyeseong Kim, and Shohei Ohtani doubled in Freeland — and extended his career-best on-base streak to 51 games, moving past Willie Keeler into third place in Dodgers history.
Sasaki went 4-2/3 innings, threw 78 pitches and gave up three runs on seven hits, striking out two and walking two. His ERA after his fourth start: 6.11, worst in the six-man rotation.
The Dodgers fell behind 6-5 in the seventh when Treinen — who was cleared Friday after he was struck in the head by a batted ball during batting practice — gave up four consecutive hits, including a two-run home run by Mickey Moniak.
The result likely will be a minor detail when Ward tells the story years from now about getting the call after first baseman Freddie Freeman was placed on the paternity list.
The Dodgers’ No. 19 prospect and reigning Pacific Coast League MVP spent the last seven years in the minors. Last season, he hit 36 home runs and drove in 122 runs with a .937 on-base-plus-slugging percentage for triple-A Oklahoma City, and he has a 1.020 OPS and four homers this year.
Ward made it a point to improve his chase rate, draw more walks and get on base more frequently, everything the Dodgers asked of him. He also passed the broadest patience test.
“The plate discipline, being a better hitter … he’s done all that,” Roberts said. “He’s improved his defense. But honestly, for me, just not to let his lack of opportunity in the big leagues deter him. That’s easy when you get frustrated and let it affect performance, and he hasn’t done that.”
If anything, Ward said, the waiting made him better.
“I used it to keep going. ‘OK, if I’m not there yet, what do I have to do to get there?’” he said. “‘What part of my game do I need to work on to keep getting better?’
“I used it as fire to keep working.”
That will be the Dodgers’ assignment too.
In the finale of the four-game series Monday, the Dodgers are expected to start left-hander Justin Wrobleski (2-0, 2.12) against Colorado left-hander Jose Quintana (0-1, 5.63).
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LAS VEGAS – Danhausen’s curse may be real after all – just ask Stephen A. Smith and the New York Mets.
While the latter dropped their 10th game in a row, Smith got his share of the curse on Saturday night during Night 1 of WrestleMania 42. Smith was in attendance for WWE’s premier event of the year and heard massive boos from the crowd.
Stephen A. Smith attends WrestleMania 42: Night 1 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 18, 2026. (Andrew Timms/WWE)
Smith was sitting ringside to watch the action. The ESPN star appeared on the videoboard above the ring at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. He appeared to embrace the reaction and smiled through it.
The boos came after Danhausen appeared on “First Take” on Friday – much to the chagrin of the sports pundit. Smith appeared perplexed by Danhausen’s appearance. Smith said he heard about Danhausen and called him a “bad luck charm.”
Danhausen said Smith had been “rude” to him and put the dreaded “curse” on the commentator.
WWE STAR DANHAUSEN SAYS METS ‘CURSE’ ISN’T EXACTLY LIFTED AS TEAM DROPS NINTH STRAIGHT GAME
Stephen A. Smith attends WrestleMania 42: Night 1 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 18, 2026. (Andrew Timms/WWE)
Smith is far from the only one dealing with the effects of the “curse.”
Danhausen agreed to “un-curse” the Mets during their losing streak. However, he told Fox News Digital earlier this week that there was a reason why the curse’s removal didn’t take full effect.
“I did un-curse the Mets. But it didn’t work because, I believe it was Brian Gewirtz who did not pay Danhausen. He did not send me my money so it did not take full effect,” Danhausen said. “Once I have the money, perhaps it will actually work because right now it’s probably about a half of an un-cursing. It’s like a layaway situation.”
Danhausen enters the arena before his match against Kit Wilson during SmackDown at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on April 10, 2026. (Eakin Howard/Getty Images)
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On “Friday Night SmackDown,” WWE stars like The Miz and Kit Wilson were also targets of Danhausen’s curse.
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