Amid Mikaela Shiffrin’s Recovery, Rival Petra Vlhova Makes Huge Skiing World Cup Announcement

Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova were the fiercest of rivals on the alpine snow. Unfortunately, the year 2024 has been quite a rough year for both skiers. While Vlhova won the 2022 Olympic Slalom in Beijing, she aimed to continue the excellent work and try to dethrone her arch-rival. Sadly, things didn’t go as expected. Competing on her home turf in Jasna, Slovakia, the defending Slalom champion suffered a gruesome injury. She crashed badly to injure her knee and ACL, making her doubtful for the entire year. 

However, back in October, reports from her camp suggested that she had a successful surgery and would return to action after missing a couple of the World Cup races of the new season. The 29-year-old also told Olympics.com in October that the pain in her knees is no more. And she looked confident about a return at 100% potential. Unfortunately, Petra Vlhova might have to wait a bit more as her medical condition does not look as rosy as the 29-year-old thought it was. 

According to the latest update, Vlhova has successfully completed her primary rehab, an adapted training camp, and a conditioning program throughout the entirety of 10 months. However, there is still some significant discomfort in the knee of the skier. This is supposedly due to resulting cartilage damage from the injury and will thus keep Vlhova out of action for a longer period than it was originally intended. 

Her coach, Mauro Pini, looked a little overwhelmed about the entire incident. However, he seemed quite positive about the 29-year-old returning to the ice soon. Reflecting on the situation, Pini stated, “Things haven’t gone entirely as planned, but we remain united and committed to Petra’s return to competitive skiing. We expect more clarity on her progress by the end of December.” 

As per her medical reports, Vlhova has been thoroughly evaluated once again in Geneva, Switzerland. Luckily, there were no complications with her knee, which was perfectly stable. To assess the exact pain point, a customized five-week program has been devised for the 2022 Slalom champion. After the completion of the same, Vlhova will be undergoing further medical tests, focusing primarily on rebuilding basic skiing techniques and conditioning. Meanwhile, as Petra Vlhova gets her return delayed, her arch-rival, Mikaela Shiffrin too, has not been doing great recently.

Mikaela Shiffrin continues her recovery journey

The hype around Mikaela Shiffrin was real as she returned to her homeland in Killington Resort. Having won 99 World Cups already, the entire audience braced for her historic 100th Cup triumph. However, fate had something entirely contrasting planned for Shiffrin. Taking the initial lead in front of a capacity 21,500 crowd, Shiffrin had the hardest falls. She crashed into the safety net and stood still out of trauma for a while.