Mikaela Shiffrin came to the Olympics looking for peace in her skiing. She found gold along the way
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin is well-versed in the bargain the Olympics forces athletes to make.
The risk that comes with laying yourself bare on the world stage. The way it challenges your mental and physical health. The ever-present fear of failure and the way it can frame — fairly or unfairly — the public's perception of you.
“It's not the easiest thing in the world to do,” she said.
No, it's not.
Trying to nudge that bargain toward friendlier terms is next to impossible. The greatest ski racer in the history of the sport has spent years wrangling with it.
On Wednesday, Shiffrin may have finally found peace.
Standing on the medal stand, a second gold medal in slalom around her neck a dozen years after she earned her first, Shiffrin closed her eyes, mouthed the lyrics to “The Star Spangled Banner” and breathed in a moment built on tireless practice, innate talent, purity of purpose and a self-belief that is harder to come by than you might think.
The peace she felt didn't come from shedding the weight of getting “ripped apart by people who sit on the couch,” as teammate Paula Moltzan put it.
No, Shiffrin returned to the top of the Olympic medal stand for the first time in eight years by leaning into what drew her to bunny slopes in New England as a kid in the first place: the challenge of bending gravity and her body to her will as she navigates from here to there while darting between gates as fast as she can.
She did not come to the Dolomite Mountains to win, which is merely a byproduct. If she's being honest, her relationship with racing is “complicated.” The joy isn't in the result, it's in the pursuit of her best.
Shiffrin found it on a sun-splashed winter afternoon when the stakes were uncomfortably high.
Down to her last chance to leave Italy with a medal after missing out in the team combined and giant slalom, she did not have to be reminded of what might happen if things got sideways.
To be Shiffrin at this moment is to be considered within the sport as one of the unquestioned GOATs in women's skiing — a record 108 World Cup wins and counting can't be wrong — while also being viewed by the public that tunes in only to the Olympics as a disappointment after she failed to reach the podium in any of the six races she entered in Beijing four years ago.
She has long grown tired of answering questions about why the brilliance she summons so easily everywhere else seems harder to come by at the Games.
Yet Shiffrin kept dutifully answering the questions anyway, fully aware they would keep coming until the 2030 Games if she left Cortina empty-handed, the three medals she already has stashed away back home in Colorado somehow forgotten.
This is part of the deal when you sign up for an event so large that the importance of everything that happens outside of it can get skewed, no matter how significant it may be.
Is it frustrating? Of course it is. Yet Shiffrin understood it was a price she needed to be willing to pay.
“In order to do this today, I kind of needed to accept the possibility that those questions would keep coming,” she said. “It was like, ‘Just don’t resist it' and just live in my own moment.”
Over the course of 1 minute, 39.10 seconds of brilliance, Shiffrin delivered an indelible run that should shut up the critics she's tried so diligently to block out. She didn't race like a 30-year-old world-weary from the pressure that follows her wherever she goes. She raced with joy and precision.
And really, isn't that kind of the point?
While admitting she still doesn't quite know how to process the leaderboard when she glances at it following a run — all Shiffrin understands is that the color green next to her name is good because it means she's fastest — she didn't have to look at it after clinching gold.
She just knew.
“I can't even explain what it feels like to cross the finish line, and know before I saw the time that I did that ski, and then see the time and think, ‘Holy (crap)’” Shiffrin said.
Her time — a full 1.50 seconds faster than silver medalist Camille Rast of Switzerland — might have surprised her. The result, however, did not.
The women who face her week in and week out know what they're up against when she's on the start list. Rast watched Shiffrin take a lead of nearly a second after a blazing first run and knew the dream of standing atop the podium here was over.
“I was like, ‘OK, gold is gone,’ but the other two medals are still open,” Rast said with a laugh.
It's been that way for the better part of a decade. Shiffrin has already locked up a record ninth World Cup season title in her preferred discipline. When she's at her best, she is practically unbeatable.
As she slowly made her way from interview to interview, doing her best to provide fresh, thoughtful answers, those who have watched her closely know only too well what it took for her to get here.
“It probably wasn't easy for her to show her performance on a day like this,” said Germany's Lena Duerr, who entered the final run in second to Shiffrin but saw her medal hopes evaporate after she missed the first gate. “The pressure for sure was high on her.”
It always is. And everyone in the sport knows it. The deeply introspective Shiffrin most of all. While she is quick to point out she hardly does this alone — the team that follows Shiffrin around the globe is a vital part of her success — when she's out on the slope, it's just her.
So maybe it's fitting at the end of her fourth trip to Olympics that it was just Shiffrin alone, if only for a moment, drinking not in the glory of gold but the satisfaction that maybe for the first time, she took this event that asks for so much for those who compete and met it on her terms.
“It just feels really good to be able to sort of let those doubts and uncertainties go," she said.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
2026 Fantasy Baseball Tiered Starting Pitcher Rankings: Proactively building SP staff is key — get your guys
With the fresh fantasy baseball season approaching, it’s time to get you some tiered rankings from my Shuffle Up series. Use these for salary cap drafts, straight drafts, keeper decisions or merely a view of how the position ebbs and flows. We’ve already handled all the hitters; now, we move to the mound.
Starting pitchers in fantasy baseball are similar to running backs in fantasy football. The position will generally be riddled with injuries. We’ll want to have several speculation plays on our bench, guys who just need one thing to click. And getting this position right — or running lucky at this position — is probably the most important part of your fantasy season.
[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2026 MLB season]
In past years, I would often be the last manager to address starting pitching, blanching at the uncertainty. Occasionally, I had success with this concept (one year I won the Yahoo Friends & Family League despite not drafting a starter; I did build a staff later) but I’ve since discarded the idea as a -EV strategy.
I want to proactively build my staff, like most of my competitors, at the draft. And I’ll have to live with the variance like anyone else.
The numbers are unscientific in nature and meant to reflect where talent clusters and drops off. Assume a 5x5 scoring system, as usual, and away we go.
More Tiered Rankings
Starting Pitcher
Relief Pitcher
The Big Tickets
$43 Tarik Skubal
$41 Paul Skenes
$39 Garrett Crochet
$36 Cristopher Sánchez
$35 Yoshinobu Yamamoto
$35 Hunter Brown
$34 Logan Webb
$32 Logan Gilbert
$31 Jacob deGrom
$30 Chris Sale
If you’re open to a high-priced ace but would prefer to start with a hitter, pray that Crochet slips to the second part of your draft. He’s in the prime of his career, tied to a team expected to contend for the playoffs and not reliant on a max-velocity fastball. Crochet will also be helped by his defense — the infield might be in flux, but the outfielders are all excellent, and the catching is also above average. Crochet was a little homer-prone at Fenway but still dominant there, and no one touched him on the road (2.25/1.00). The Red Sox were right to go all-in on Chris Sale once upon a time, and history repeated itself when it cleared out the prospect chest for Crochet last year.
Because the Dodgers already have nine toes in the playoffs, I’m going to be careful with workload projections for everyone on staff. Los Angeles will basically run a six-man rotation all year, and anytime a pitcher has the slightest hiccup with their arms and elbows, a rest is to be expected. Yamamoto is the only L.A. pitcher who’s qualified for the ERA title over the last three years (162 innings), and he’s also the only returning Dodger starter who logged more than 91 innings last year.
Webb is 60 innings ahead of the field over the past three years and working in San Francisco mitigates some of his mistakes. With a good-but-not-elite strikeout clip and a ground-ball bias, we have to accept that in some starts, Webb will get crushed by BABIP misfortune. And you have to be okay with his fastball checking in at an ordinary 92.6 mph. But Webb looks like a perfect fourth-round target to me.
DeGrom’s inning count has turned into an unsolvable SAT question. Starting in 2021 and cutting off the partials, this is what we’re looking at: 92, 64, 30, 10, 172. He’s moving into his age-38 season. Maybe it’s a fool’s errand to suppose any pitcher has a legitimate floor, but I know deGrom at this stage doesn’t have one. My heart will always be invested in deGrom, so I’ll avoid doubling down with fantasy investment. You have to decide for yourself.
Legitimate Building Blocks
$28 Bryan Woo
$27 Hunter Greene
$26 Max Fried
$25 Cole Ragans
$25 Joe Ryan
$25 Freddy Peralta
$23 Framber Valdez
$23 Jesús Luzardo
$22 George Kirby
$22 Dylan Cease
$20 Blake Snell
$19 Kyle Bradish
$18 Nick Pivetta
Rotator cuff problems cost Ragans more than half of his season, but the rest of his results were a cause of bad luck — every reasonable ERA estimator says he should have been in the mid-2s, not the 4.67 number on the back of his card. Ragans gave us a reminder of his upside with 13 return innings in September, striking out 22. There’s no reason why he can’t return to his 2024 level of production (3.14/1.14, fourth in Cy Young voting).
Cease was a frustrating case last year, as he piled up 215 strikeouts but gave us hurtful ratios (4.55/1.33). Toronto’s defense should help him turn more batted events into outs. Maybe he’s not going to challenge for the Cy Young again, but normalized sequencing should give him a mid-threes ERA, and he’s proven to be durable. Don't let his standard stats scare you off.
Talk Them Up, Talk Them Down
$17 Nolan McLean
$17 Tyler Glasnow
$15 Kevin Gausman
$14 Eury Pérez
$13 Sonny Gray
$13 Luis Castillo
$13 Trey Yesavage
$13 Robbie Ray
$13 Cam Schlittler
$13 Zack Wheeler
$13 Spencer Strider
$13 Nathan Eovaldi
$13 Michael King
$12 Brandon Woodruff
$12 Shane Bieber
$12 Sandy Alcantara
$12 Jacob Misiorowski
$12 Gavin Williams
$12 Chase Burns
$12 Trevor Rogers
$12 Shota Imanaga
$12 MacKenzie Gore
$12 Andrew Abbott
$11 Emmet Sheehan
$11 Nick Lodolo
$11 Bubba Chandler
$11 Ranger Suárez
$11 Shohei Ohtani
$11 Cade Horton
$10 Ryan Pepiot
$10 Tanner Bibee
$10 Carlos Rodón
$10 Jack Flaherty
The Brewers have become the new Rays, the low-market team that makes better decisions than just about everyone else and winds up in the tournament every fall. Thus, I want to be proactive with their high-upside arms like Misiorowski and Henderson, while fully understanding that the team will be careful with workloads and pitch counts. If Misiorowski even gets to 24 starts, he probably returns his spring draft cost.
The early market is not bullish on Abbott, which means he can actually be worse than last year and still return a profit. Regress-and-win players are my jam. The strikeouts will play, and fly-ball pitchers are misunderstood — at least they’re showing control of their outcomes.
The Marlins are ready to take the training wheels off with Pérez, and it’s hard to unsee that tidy 0.96 WHIP he had over his final 16 starts. With the Tommy John surgery firmly in the background, Perez is poised for a possible breakout. Hopefully, he doesn't feel like he needs to strike out the world — the Marlins have a problematic defense.
Some Plausible Upside
$9 Drew Rasmussen
$9 Shane McClanahan
$9 Matthew Boyd
$8 Merrill Kelly
$8 Zac Gallen
$7 Shane Baz
$7 Edward Cabrera
$6 Bailey Ober
$6 David Peterson
$6 Joe Musgrove
$6 *Gerrit Cole
$5 Aaron Nola
$5 Tatsuya Imai
$5 Bryce Miller
$5 Jameson Taillon
Peruse the Boyd splits and you might abandon the case — 12 of his wins were at home but he was a mess on the road, and his breakout stopped in the second half (4.63/1.19). And last season was his first full year starting out of six. But the Cubs have a top-five defense and a top-five lineup to support Boyd, and Yahoo rooms are giving you a reasonable 197.6 ticket. I can sign off.
Ober has always been a curious case, a 6-foot-9 righty with below-average velocity. A hip problem was probably responsible for his messy 2025; his three years prior gave us a 3.66 ERA and 1.03 WHIP. He’s well priced for profit, even if the Minnesota defense is no longer an asset.
Nola routinely comes up short of his expected stats to the point that you have to accept it as part of his profile. And even if that horrible 6.01 ERA was reduced to his 4.58 FIP, it’s not like either stat helps you. His fastball has lost velocity for four straight seasons and homers, always a problem, hit a new low last season. Nola might seem like a tantalizing name pick at a reduced ADP, but I’m not chasing him on the back nine of a slowly-fading career.
Bargain Bin
$4 José Soriano
$4 Roki Sasaki
$4 Noah Cameron
$4 Quinn Priester
$4 Logan Henderson
$4 Clay Holmes
$4 Seth Lugo
$3 Connelly Early
$3 Ryne Nelson
$3 Kris Bubic
$3 Mitch Keller
$3 Casey Mize
$3 Michael Wacha
$3 Sean Manaea
$3 Shane Smith
$3 Chris Bassitt
$3 Brayan Bello
$3 Ryan Weathers
$3 Zebby Matthews
$3 *Corbin Burnes
$2 Yusei Kikuchi
$2 Jack Leiter
$2 Zach Eflin
$2 Brady Singer
$2 Reynaldo López
$2 Parker Messick
$2 *Hurston Waldrep
$2 Ian Seymour
$2 Brandon Pfaadt
$2 Kodai Senga
$2 José Berríos
$2 Justin Verlander
$2 Max Meyer
$2 Lucas Giolito
$2 Braxton Garrett
$2 Dustin May
$2 Cody Ponce
$2 Matthew Liberatore
$2 Dean Kremer
$1 *Spencer Schwellenbach
$1 *Grayson Rodriguez
$1 Cade Cavalli
$1 Jeffrey Springs
$1 Joey Cantillo
$1 Troy Melton
$1 Will Warren
$1 Braxton Ashcraft
$1 Michael McGreevy
$1 Luis Severino
$1 Slade Cecconi
$1 Mike Burrows
$1 Chad Patrick
$1 Jonah Tong
$1 Zack Littell
$1 Eduardo Rodríguez
$1 Tyler Mahle
$1 Payton Tolle
Senga has a wide range of outcomes — you could imagine him being in a playoff rotation come October, but he’s also not guaranteed to make the Mets out of training camp. Maybe Senga’s second-half collapse was mostly about hamstring problems, but keep in mind he’s 33 and we’re three years removed from his last full season.
With someone like Matthews, we follow the strikeout rate and the prospect pedigree and hope he can improve the control. His ultimate success will come down to finding a solution against lefties, who slashed .316/.372/.572 against him last year.
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Der SC Magdeburg kann in der Handball Champions League gegen GOG Handbold den elften Sieg im elften Gruppenspiel holen und damit vorzeitig ins Viertelfinale einziehen.[mehr]
Manchester United Have Joined The Race For This Borussia Dortmund Talent: Good Option For Carrick?
In a recent report, Fichajes mentioned that Manchester United have joined the race for Borussia Dortmund talent Julian Ryerson. It has been claimed that the Red Devils would have to compete with Barcelona in the race to land the Norwegian right-back next summer.
Ryerson’s Impressive Form In The Bundesliga
Ryerson is having a decent campaign at the German club and deserves credit for putting in a run of solid displays on the right side of their backline. The Norwegian talent has picked up 14 assists in 30 matches for Borussia Dortmund this season across all fronts.
The 28-year-old is currently among the most productive full-backs in European football. Thus, Man United would do well to get a deal over the line for him next summer.
His current contract at the Signal Iduna Park will run out in the summer of 2028, which could make it difficult for the Red Devils to sign him on a cut-price deal at the end of this season.
BERLIN, GERMANY – JANUARY 24: Julian Ryerson of Dortmund in action during the Bundesliga match between 1. FC Union Berlin and Borussia Dortmund at Stadion An der Alten Foersterei on January 24, 2026 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
Is Ryerson A Good Option For Manchester United Boss Michael Carrick?
Ryerson is a solid tackler of the ball and can make the odd interception for his side inside his half. He doesn’t mind putting his foot through the ball when needed and can contribute by picking up his fair share of assists from the wide areas.
The Norwegian sensation is primarily a right-back but can also play as a left-back or as a right-winger if told to do so by his manager. However, the jury is still out on whether he can cope with the physicality and high intensity of the Premier League if the Red Devils manage to bring him to Old Trafford this summer.
We can expect Ryerson to bring more quality to Man United head coach Michael Carrick’s defence. He is more than capable of nailing down a regular first-team spot at the Mancunian club in the coming seasons.
At 28, Ryerson is enjoying his prime right now. Hence, he would be a good option for Man United to consider later this year. However, Carrick has to give him some time to settle into life in England before he can get the best out of him at the Theatre of Dreams.