After Mikaela Shiffrin finished her second run in the slalom to win the gold by an astonishing 1.5 seconds on Wednesday, she bent her knees and crouched over, seemingly taking a moment for herself.
If you listened to just the hype leading up to the event, you might have thought that the decorated American skier was merely savoring her first Olympic medal since 2018. Early in these Games, she finished fourth with teammate Breezy Johnson with an uncharacteristically sluggish run in the team combined event, and took 11th in the giant slalom.
Listening to her speak after her win on Wednesday, it was clear that her emotion was not about having silenced her doubters or having lifted any hex — or even just about recapturing the gold. Shiffrin’s father died after an accident in 2020. The way she spoke about how she has experienced life since then will likely resonate with anyone who mourns a loved one (my dad died last year, and I was stunned at how exactly she captured this unmooring).
“Everything in life that you do after you lose someone you love is like a new experience. It’s like being born again. I still have so many moments where I resist this,” she said.
At age 30, Shiffrin became the oldest U.S. woman to win the slalom, with the biggest gap between individual gold medals in the same Winter Olympic event. But the most significant milestone of hers to me — and, perhaps, to her — was a personal one: “I don’t want to be in life without my dad. Today was the first time that I could actually accept this — like reality. And instead of thinking I would be going in this moment without him,” she reflected, she was able “to take the moment to be silent with him.”
I’ve always loved the Olympics, but dislike the intense focus on medal counts and winning — and the absurd characterization of a silver medal as losing the gold.
As a kid, I was an avid Olympics watcher and I can still remember the coverage leading up to the 1992 Games. You would have thought that the only contenders for the all-around gymnastics gold medal were Kim Zmeskal from the United States or Svetlana Boginskaya from the Unified team, who had taken the top two slots at the prior year’s world championships. Zmeskal, though, was injured going into the Games and both had off days, and they finished fifth and 10th, respectively. This hyper focus on their finishes was a disservice to those two, as well as the many other talented gymnasts who were always credible contenders for a medal.
In high school, I was a competitive rhythmic gymnast, but I was never in the tier of those who were seriously contenders to be in the Olympics. I was elated the few times I was able to compete in international competitions with Olympic medalists. The rhythmic gymnasts I trained and competed with in the United States had no illusions that they would be competing for Olympic medals, but they made similar sacrifices to those who stood on the podium — without the glory or financial payoff. Performing to their potential was their version of a gold medal, and that’s the case for so many of the athletes at the Olympics.
Heading into this year’s men’s figure skating competition, it was impossible to avoid references to the 21-year-old Ilia Malinin as the “quad god.” To anyone following along, it was unfathomable that anyone could defeat him — perhaps even to Malinin himself, who hadn’t lost a competition since 2023.
Malinin handled his uncharacteristically error-ridden free skate in Milan with grace, immediately congratulating the winner, Mikhail Shaidorov, and patiently answering the media’s questions without defensiveness. His maturity and the support he received from sports legends such as Simone Biles were encouraging to witness.
Far below Malinin in the rankings was another U.S. skater, Maxim Naumov, who is a reminder of how the numbers don’t capture the whole story.
By one measure, Naumov finished an unremarkable 20th, last among the Americans. By another measure, he achieved a huge personal victory. The 24-year-old lost both parents, who were also his coaches, in the plane crash last year that devastated the U.S. figure skating community. While many people might just stumble along after such a tragedy, Naumov returned to the rink, got a new coach, finished third at this year’s nationals and made his Olympic debut, following in the footsteps of his parents, who were two-time figure skating Olympians. “I keep coming back to how difficult this year was, and how much I had to go through to be there and hitting that last pose,” said Naumov, who carried a picture of his parents with him. “The journey meant the most to me, and I felt it through both my performances.”
As the Olympics wrap up, the focus will inevitably turn to Norway topping the gold medal count, or whether the U.S. will be able to return to dominance at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Many kids, and even some future Olympians, will enroll in skiing or figure skating classes or maybe just head to their local rink for an afternoon of fun, inspired by the remarkable athletic feats of Shiffrin, Naumov and Malinin. I was, and am that person, too. But even more, I will savor their achievements that will not be listed in any record book.
Liriel Higa is the director of audience for Opinion. She has not missed a Games since her hometown was the host, whether in person or from her couch, and she plans to cheer for athletes in Los Angeles again in 2028.
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