CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin isn’t just narrowing her focus for the Milan Cortina Olympics after struggling in Beijing four years ago. She’s cutting her race program in half after two serious crashes since 2022.

The American skiing standout will race only her core events of slalom and giant slalom, plus team combined — which for her is a slalom run, U.S. head coach Paul Kristofic told The Associated Press on Thursday.

That’s compared to the six events she entered in 2022 — when she didn’t finish three races and didn’t win a medal.

Shiffrin entered one World Cup super-G this season at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in December and performed well until missing the final gate. She was pleased by that performance but then didn’t race any other super-Gs.

“That (decision) was made quite a while ago, to focus on slalom and GS,” Kristofic said.

Shiffrin won a World Cup super-G at Cortina in 2019 and has won medals in every color in the event at world championships, including a bronze at the 2021 edition in Cortina.

But Shiffrin crashed in downhill at Cortina in January 2024 and then had more injuries after a nasty fall in giant slalom at Killington, Vermont, last season.

Kristofic believes Shiffrin’s more streamlined approach focusing on slalom (the event in which she has won 71 of her record 108 World Cup victories) and giant slalom (22 World Cup victories), will help her “only positively.”

“You can get spread very thin when you’re chasing after multiple disciplines between speed and tech,” Kristofic said. “So often your preparation gets compromised because you need to prioritize one or the other. So ultimately you run out of time to really prepare yourself to 100% be on point in your key disciplines.

“So I think that narrowed focus has helped her stay on point with what she’s trying to get done. And that was certainly the plan coming into these Olympics.”

Shiffrin suffered a deep puncture wound to her abdomen in Killington and only returned to the podium in GS in her final race weekend before these Games less than two weeks ago.

Having struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder from the Killington crash, it’s been a challenge both physically and mentally to regain her status in GS.

“There’s definitely two parts to that,” Kristofic said. “And that just took time and quite a bit of patience and just staying true to a plan and building every time we go out there.”

Lindsey Vonn shows off a brace on her injured left knee

While Shiffrin is not entering Sunday’s downhill, 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn plans to race despite tearing the ACL in her left knee last week.

Vonn posted video on social media of herself working out actively while wearing a large brace.

“I’m sure she’ll have everything dialed in as ready as possible,” Kristofic said. “She’s made it clear she’s going to push and we’ll see how things evolve through the training runs into the race.”

US women have medal chances in every event

Vonn has dominated in downhill this season and Jacqueline Wiles and Breezy Johnson have also been on the podium, as has Paula Moltzan on the tech side with Shiffrin. It all sets up the possibility that the U.S. women could medal in every race at the Olympics.

Even after Vonn’s injury.

“It certainly can still be the case,” Kristofic said. “I think everybody’s well aware that we have that capacity, and not just with one athlete, but with multiple. … We’re in a good spot coming into these games.”

Vonn-Shiffrin combined ‘dream team’ not set yet

Until her injury, Vonn seemed like a lock to pair with Shiffrin in the team combined for a “ skiing dream team.”

Now nobody knows how she will perform.

Not specifically addressing Vonn’s status, Kristofic said the pairings for the four U.S. teams will be made after Sunday’s downhill.

“We definitely wanted to keep the downhill here in Cortina in play for the selection of that team,” he said. “We just need to see how things evolve.”

At worlds last year, the team of Johnson and Shiffrin won gold. So does their history together play a factor in the selection?

“It will be objective performance that will define what our teams look like," Kristofic said. “I know there’s lots of fanfare around how people would like to see it, but in the end my job is to put the best pairings together so we can perform and get a medal and potentially win.”

The slalom rankings are already set, with Shiffrin in the top spot followed by Moltzan, Nina O’Brien and AJ Hurt.

The team combined consists of one skier racing a downhill run and another racing a slalom run and them combining the times together to determine the results.

Is there any discussion with the athletes during the selection process?

“There’s always discussion with athletes,” Kristofic said. “But in the end it’s a coach’s decision.

___

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Her first career podium. The women’s World Cup wins mark. A course-record 12 victories. The family reunions with her Italy-based sister. And a rare European race visit by her mother.

Lindsey Vonn is attempting to recover from a left knee injury in time to try and win an Olympic medal next weekend at age 41.

One of the biggest reasons she came back in the first place after nearly six years of retirement — and what's motivating her now — is that she wants to return to the town hosting women's races at the Milan Cortina Winter Games.

Vonn is the queen of Cortina d'Ampezzo, the resort known as “the Queen of the Dolomites.” Her memories there go back nearly a quarter century.

“I don’t think I would have tried this comeback if the Olympics weren’t in Cortina,” Vonn said before her injury. “If it had been anywhere else, I would probably say it’s not worth it. But for me, there’s something special about Cortina that always pulls me back and it’s pulled me back one last time.”

Vonn recently looked back at her career in Cortina during an interview with The Associated Press:

An unfinished debut nearly a quarter century ago

Vonn’s first race in Cortina was back in January 2002, before some of her current competitors were even born.

Approaching what would be her first Olympics a month later at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, Vonn’s debut in Cortina was a World Cup super-G and she didn’t finish it.

“I was skiing pretty well at the time, but I wasn’t really putting everything together,” she said. “And I remember in Cortina being nervous about making the Olympic team. I don’t think I skied badly. But I didn’t finish, so at that point I definitely hadn’t been able to put all the pieces together.”

Demoted to skiing's minor leagues

Vonn’s Cortina record doesn't have an entry for 2003.

Why?

“Oh, I got demoted,” she said. “I was sent back to Europa Cup. They definitely put all their weight behind Julia (Mancuso),” referring to skiing’s “minor leagues” circuit and her former teammate.

“At that point I hadn’t 100% committed to speed. … I had been racing more tech races than I had speed, so I was still kind of not sure where I fit in and I was still super skinny at the time and I was just trying to figure everything out.”

Vonn’s demotion motivated her to hire a physical trainer and get into better shape.

A memorable video session with a trusted coach

Turns out, it didn’t take Vonn very long “to figure everything out.”

When she returned to Cortina in 2004, Vonn recorded the first World Cup podium result of her career.

In the first of two downhills that weekend, Vonn finished fifth in what was her first time racing downhill on the Olympia delle Tofane course.

The next day, she finished third in a race won by then Olympic champion Carole Montillet. Lindsey Kildow, as she was still referred to, placed 0.24 seconds behind and only one hundredth behind second-place finisher Renate Goetschl.

“Cortina was really the turning point for me. It’s really where I solidified my mental routine, my physical routine,” Vonn said. “That was the first time I really felt confident enough in what I was doing that I belonged on the podium.”

It was a video session with Alex Hoedlmoser — who has coached Vonn since she was 16 and still coaches her with the U.S. team now — after Vonn’s fifth-place finish that made something click with her.

“He’s like, ‘See, that wasn’t that hard, was it?’ And I was like, ‘No, I can do this.’ And he’s like, 'Yes, you can,'” Vonn said. “I remember it very vividly.

“And then when I did get on the podium, it was such a great feeling, and I remember calling my dad, and my grandparents, and my mom, and crying, and it was a really special moment, and really a turning point for me in my career, where I really believed that I could be amongst the best in the world.”

A comfort zone she shares only with Lake Louise

Vonn didn’t win her first race in Cortina until 2008. But ever since that 2004 podium, she has felt comfortable there.

“It’s kind of like Lake Louise where I don’t have to think too much about it,” Vonn said, referring to the Canadian resort where she won 18 races. “I know where to go, I know what it takes, and it’s a very special place for me and no matter how many wins or losses I’ve had there, that won’t change.”

A family reunion for a record-breaking weekend

While Tiger Woods may have stolen the show, what Vonn likes to remember about when she broke Annemarie Moser-Pröll’s 35-year-old World Cup wins record in 2015 with victory No. 63, in Cortina, is that she was surrounded by her family.

“I have a big family and they really haven’t come to hardly any World Cups in my career, unfortunately,” Vonn said. “That was a really special weekend. My dad and his wife and my mom and her husband, my sister Laura, were there. It was really special. I don’t have many pictures or memories of my family being at World Cup races. We have the Olympics but even then it’s not my whole family. So I really cherished that weekend.”

Vonn’s younger sister, Laura, lived in Florence then and the siblings met up annually in Cortina. Vonn’s mother, Lindy, died in 2022 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“It’s nice,” Vonn said of the 2015 race, “to be able to look back and remind myself of those memories.”

Tears, pain and retirement in 2019. And now back again

It hasn’t been just joy for Vonn in Cortina.

There were also tears when she struggled there in 2019, realizing that she would soon have to retire due to the pain in her knees and joints.

After getting a partial joint replacement in her right knee, Vonn returned to racing last season and now she’s heading back to Cortina aiming to add some new entries to her career record there — if her left knee allows it.

___

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics