SUN VALLEY, Idaho (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin's flashbacks to her November crash in a giant slalom race are happening less and less when she's training.
For her, as she deals with post-traumatic stress disorder in the discipline, that's major progress.
While other racers compete in the GS on Tuesday at World Cup finals in Sun Valley, Shiffrin plans to squeeze in some training in the slalom. It will be the American standout's only event of the weeklong finals after not qualifying in giant slalom.
The two-time Olympic champion revealed last month that she’s suffering from PTSD after falling in the GS on Nov. 30 in Killington, Vermont. In the crash, something punctured Shiffrin's side and caused severe trauma to her oblique muscles.
Shiffrin skipped the giant slalom at world championships and has raced the discipline three times since, with her best showing 25th place.
But she's back to turning in fast sections at practice in the GS, a discipline that blends speed and technical skill.
“Training is going well. It’s actually super positive. Training has been improving day-by-day,” Shiffrin said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday before signing autographs for fans. “I'm just trying to get back to the confidence that I was skiing with in Killington when the crash happened. That would be a big goal.”
On that day, Shiffrin was leading after the first run of the GS as she charged after her 100th World Cup win. The finish line was in sight on her final run, when she lost an edge and slid into a gate, flipping head over skis.
The all-time winningest Alpine World Cup ski racer then slammed into another gate before coming to a stop in the protective fencing. She still doesn't know what led to the puncture wound.
To help with getting back in the giant slalom start gate, she's been working with a psychologist. Leading into world championships and the GS, she checked most of the boxes for PTSD symptoms. A few weeks later in Are, Sweden, she checked fewer.
“My processing speed and the mind-body connection has come back in a great way,” explained Shiffrin, who earned her 100th World Cup win last month in Italy. "But every now and then I’ll still have the sort of intrusive images or thoughts cross my mind of crashing or the pain. Normally, it’s in the start gate. If I’m starting to get a little bit tired in a session, I just imagine everything that could go wrong and it’s kind of an intense reaction.
“But it happens so much less often now. It does feel very true that simply exposure to doing the thing that’s pretty uncomfortable is helpful.”
Following her slalom training session Tuesday, Shiffrin will be watching as New Zealand’s Alice Robinson tries to hold off Italy’s Federica Brignone for the crystal globe in the giant slalom.
The 30-year-old Shiffrin can see glimpses of her GS form returning. She won an Olympic gold medal in the discipline at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games and 22 of her 100 World Cup victories have come in giant slalom.
“Some of my turns are competitive with the fastest in the world,” said Shiffrin, whose slalom race is Thursday. “But putting that together for a minute and 10-second GS run — that just takes time and repetition. We’ll need to try to get some days this summer with long course sets, with a lot of variation of course sets, variation of conditions. I don’t doubt that I can get to that competitive level again.
"I think a lot of my skiing is already there.”
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Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin speaks to a reporter in advance of competing at the World Cup Finals, Monday, March 24, 2025, in Sun Valley, Idaho. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
CAIRO (AP) — Palestinians chanted against Hamas during an anti-war protest in the Gaza Strip, according to videos circulating online. It was a rare show of public anger against the militant group, which has long repressed dissent and still rules the territory 17 months into the war with Israel.
The videos, which appeared to be authentic, showed hundreds of people taking part in an anti-war protest in the heavily destroyed northern town of Beit Lahiya on Tuesday. People held signs saying “Stop the war,” “We refuse to die,” and “The blood of our children is not cheap.”
Some could be heard chanting: “Hamas out!” Other videos appeared to show Hamas supporters dispersing the crowds.
“We are sick of the bombing, killing and displacement,” Ammar Hassan, a young man from Beit Lahiya who took part in the protest.
He said it started as an anti-war protest with just a few dozen people but then swelled to more than 2,000, with people chanting against Hamas.
“It's the only party we can affect,” he said over the phone. “Protests won't stop the (Israeli) occupation, but it can affect Hamas,” he said.
“The protest was not about politics. It was about people’s lives," said Mohammed Abu Saker, a father of three from the nearby town of Beit Hanoun, who joined the demonstration.
“We want to stop the killing and displacement, no matter the price. We can’t stop Israel from killing us, but we can press Hamas to give concessions,” he said.
A statement released by family elders from Beit Lahiya expressed support for the protests against Israel's offensive and its tightened blockade. They also said the community fully supports armed resistance against Israel and rejects “any attempt to exploit legitimate popular demands by a fifth column," apparently referring to opponents of Hamas.
The protests erupted a week after Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas by launching a surprise wave of strikes that killed hundreds of people. Earlier this month, Israel halted deliveries of food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid to Gaza's roughly 2 million Palestinians.
Israel has vowed to escalate the war until Hamas returns the 59 hostages it still holds — 24 of whom are believed to be alive. Israel is also demanding that the group give up power, disarm and send its leaders into exile. Hamas has said it will only release the remaining captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
The war was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251. Hamas has said only a handful of its top commanders knew about the attack ahead of time.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 50,000 people, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. Israel's bombardment and ground operations have caused vast destruction and at their height displaced some 90% of Gaza's population.
Hamas won a landslide victory in the last Palestinian elections, held in 2006. It seized power in Gaza from the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, dominated by the secular Fatah movement, the following year after months of factional unrest and a week of heavy street battles.
Rights groups say both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas violently suppress dissent, quashing protests in the areas they control and jailing and torturing critics.
El Deeb reported from Beirut.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Palestinians walk amid the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive at Al-Shati camp, Gaza City, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
