As Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin competes today in the women’s alpine combined event, she has a special pair of skis strapped to her boots — borrowed from Italy’s Sofia Goggia.
Goggia won silver in the women’s downhill event on Tuesday after returning from a knee injury sustained at the Cortina d’Ampezzo super-G in January.
Sharing skis: It’s not uncommon for skiers to switch skis — at the last Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Czech skier Ester Ledecká used Shiffrin’s skis to compete in the super-G event.
“As a racer, you go through your skis and you use what you want, and then maybe you move onto a different pair and your skis go back into the pool,” Shiffrin told NBC today.
“But it is actually a little different this time with Sophie (Goggia) because they’re a pair of the skis that she’s currently training and competing on. She didn’t need them because she wasn’t competing here so I was able to try them yesterday, and I was able to ski on them today.
“She actually wrote a small message on them on a sticky note, I saw it in the start and I almost started crying because it was just like, ‘You can fly on these skis,’ or something like that.”
Shiffrin praised Goggia and her “perfect team,” saying the Italian, the downhill gold medalist in Pyeongchang, won races thanks to her incredible skill — as well as the pair of skis expertly maintained by servicemen.
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