Photo: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

American Ski Racers Claim Gold in New Combined World Championships Event

Originally posted on Powder | By Ian Greenwood | Last updated Feb 12, 2025 6:22 AM ET

Breezy Johnson and Mikaela Shiffrin won the World Championships’ inaugural alpine racing combined event on Tuesday, February 11, 2025.

The new event paired one downhiller with a slalom racer, adding their cumulative times to determine each team’s final position. The winning Americans focused on their specialties. Shiffrin took slalom — Johnson took downhill.

In their individual races, Shiffrin and Johnson performed well enough to establish the lowest combined time of the day. The Swiss and Austrian teams rounded out the podium.

The successful combined race occurred as both American racers were rediscovering their footing after periods of tumult.

Shiffrin, already the winningest alpine racer of all time, crashed last November in Killington, Vermont, suffering a puncture wound. For roughly two months, she was sidelined from the World Cup circuit as she recovered.

Last month, in Courchevel, France, Shiffrin returned to snow for a slalom event, placing 10th. However, ahead of the World Championships, she said that she wouldn’t compete in the upcoming giant slalom competition. Giant slalom is faster and more dangerous than slalom. It was also the discipline in which Shiffrin injured herself in Killington.

“I’m currently working through some mental obstacles in order to return to the GS start with the intensity required for racing,” Shiffrin wrote in a recent social media post. “Coming to terms with how much fear I have doing an event that I loved so dearly only 2 months ago has been soul-crushing.”

Foregoing giant slalom created an opening, though, allowing Shiffrin to compete in the combined event alongside Johnson.

Johnson, before Saturday, might have been an unlikely candidate to join Shiffrin in the combined event as she entered World Championships ranked behind fellow American Lauren Macuga in downhill. The U.S. ski team used data-driven selection to match the top downhill skier with the top slalom skier, before moving down the list to create four potential combined teams, NBC Sports reports.

Johnson’s also weathered serious injuries, and more recently, faced a 14-month racing ban after failing to appear for required anti-doping tests.

Then, on Saturday, Johnson turned a corner, claiming the first major victory of her career with a gold in the World Championships downhill event — and eventually joining Shiffrin's combined team.

“She has fought tooth and nail to get here, and now she is World Champion,” Shiffrin wrote of Johnson on social media ahead of Tuesday’s race. “I’m so honored to partner with her on our little Team Atomic.”

Shiffrin plans to race again this Saturday in the World Championship slalom event.

This article first appeared on Powder and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: