Mikaela Shiffrin healed from puncture wound, to race next week - ESPN

Six weeks ago, Mikaela Shiffrin didn't have the core strength to rise out of a chair. A sneeze or a laugh brought on instant pain.

That was all due to a serious crash in a giant slalom race Nov. 30 in Killington, Vermont, where something punctured her in the side — what it was is still a mystery — and caused severe trauma to her oblique muscles.

It has been a demanding and difficult road back for the fast-healing Shiffrin, who plans to make her World Cup return at a slalom race in Courchevel, France, on Thursday, Jan. 30.

Her journey to the start gate included preventive surgery to ward off an infection inside a wound that penetrated through three layers of muscle and hours of arduous rehab to reactivate those crucial core muscles on her way to feeling comfortable again weaving through a course.

That's why Shiffrin's focus is solely on progression, not so much her pursuit of World Cup win No. 100. Given where she was, just to make it back this quickly from an injury that's not exactly common for a ski racer and resulted in her physical therapist consulting with baseball and hockey teams, that is already a big win.

«It's going to be a little bit nerve-wracking, to be honest,» 29-year-old Shiffrin told The Associated Press. «These past six weeks, every step it's like, 'Geez, should this be hurting less? Should I be better at this? Should I be more tolerant of the pain?' There are so many questions that come up in your mind of basically whether or not you're doing well enough.

»But when we take a step back and look where we are now… it's pretty exciting."

Shiffrin has repeatedly watched the crash. She has analyzed precisely what happened in a race where she was leading and looked headed toward milestone win No. 100.

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