Mikaela Shiffrin uncertain about return this season amid post-injury complications: 'There's not a lot of precedent'
The USA alpine skier suffered a crash during a giant slalom run in Killington and underwent an unplanned surgery almost two weeks after, on 12 December. But a timeline for her return to racing remains uncertain: "It just depends on how I improve over the next weeks and months," she said.
Alpine Skiing
Mikaela Shiffrin could face a long road in her return to the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup or even miss the remainder the season due to a rocky injury recovery after her Killington crash on 30 November.
The USA alpine skier, who underwent an unexpected surgery to clear fluid from her puncture wound on Thursday, 12 December, told skiracing.com she is not sure when she might return to competition.
“I think if all things had gone perfectly and all the drainage just came out, we were pretty sure the season would be possible,” Shiffrin said. “It just depends on how I improve over the next weeks and months. There’s not a lot of precedent for this injury in our sport.
“We can look at acute oblique tears in baseball, hockey and other sports, but ski racing is different. When you think about the force of a GS turn or a slalom turn or a super-G turn, it’s hard to know what the muscle will withstand. We’re giving it a couple of weeks to see. I think we’ll get a clearer view each day of how it’s going to work.”
Shiffrin was on the brink of securing her career’s 100th World Cup victory when she crashed in the second run of the giant slalom in Killington, resulting in a deep puncture to her oblique muscle.
The World Cup record-breaker was taken down the mountain on a sled and received immediate medical attention. Doctors cleaned her wound and gave her a wound vacuum to drain the fluid.
As the fluid was not draining properly and she felt unwell, Shiffrin went to the hospital last Thursday and underwent surgery to clear the fluid and help repair a torn muscle near her pelvis.
“We were trying to avoid surgery because it meant opening up the area more, which causes a bit more damage,” she said. “In the end, it was probably the best option to clean out the wound and figure out what was going on in there.
“It is a deep puncture wound with quite a lot of severe muscle trauma. I was really lucky because it was probably like a millimetre from my colon.
“The wound vac just wasn’t quite able to do the proper work to drain the fluid out of my body so it could heal. That’s where the surgery came in. We discovered a pocket of fluid that was untouched by the wound vac.”
Shiffrin is currently recovering at home in Colorado. She said she is not feeling much pain and is able to walk slowly and climb stairs.