Mikaela Shiffrin thankful injury 'was not worse' after needing hospital airlift in frightening World Cup crash

Updated 01/02/2024 at 11:14 GMT

American Mikaela Shiffrin was airlifted to hospital on Friday after crashing out in Italy at the Cortina d'Ampezzo slope. The World Cup record holder took to social media, explaining that she would be taking her recovery "day by day" with no indication of an expected date of return. "Very thankful it's not worse, but I'm pretty sore at the moment," she wrote.

Mikaela Shiffrin crashes during women's Downhill and is helped off before being airlifted

Mikaela Shiffrin is relieved that her injury “was not worse” after crashing in the women’s World Cup downhill race in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Friday.

The 28-year-old American got into trouble midway through her run in Italy and ended up in the nets, and there were immediate concerns that she had suffered a severe injury.

She was airlifted to hospital in an episode that saw the race held up for more than 20 minutes.

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Austrian Stephanie Venier was able to take the win in the World Cup event.

"Thank you everyone for your support and well wishes," she wrote on

. "At this point I'm just taking it day by day."

She added: "I'll share more information or updates as I know more. Very thankful it's not worse, but I'm pretty sore at the moment.

"I won't be skiing the rest of this weekend, and I won't be skiing in Kronplatz. Beyond that, it's quite hard to say right now. Need a little time to process with my team and see how everything is feeling in the coming days! Thank you all!"

Earlier, US women's Apline skiing head coach Paul Kristofic spoke to the Associated Press.

“She’s actually quite good,” he said. "She’s positive and in a certain way relieved. Because it could have been worse. But she’s pretty sore, as you are for most speed crashes. But she was quite upbeat about things.”

However, he was unsure when she might return to the slopes, adding: "We’re just going to go day by day at this point and treat what we’ve got and try to get her back up to speed."

The incident follows Petra Vlhova’s accident last weekend in Jasna, Slovakia, where she suffered a season-ending injury.

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