Mikaela Shiffrin uses Sofia Goggia's downhill skis in combined event: "Fly Mika, you can"

Mikaela Shiffrin revealed a curious anecdote behind her strong performance in the downhill run of the women's alpine combined event at Beijing 2022.

As previously suggested by ski legend Lindsey Vonn on the U.S. television, the American used a pair of skis borrowed from fellow Olympic champion Sofia Goggia, who recently earned silver in the Olympic downhill after recovering from an injury.

As admitted by Shiffrin at the finish line on Thursday (17 February), the Italian left her a sticky note on the skis saying: "FLY MIKA, YOU CAN"

"They are the pair of skis she’s currently competing and training on," the 26-year-old said on NBC.

"She didn’t need them because she wasn’t competing here so I was able to try them yesterday. Then I was able to ski on them today. She actually wrote a small message on them on a sticky note, when I saw it in the start I almost started crying… It was just like, ‘You can fly on these skis’, or something like that.

She then added: "One thing you can be sure about is Sofi is winning, she has incredible skis, her serviceman is doing an amazing job, but she wins races also because of her skills, so they are just the perfect team. I’m thankful I was able to get a feeling on those, just try to fly as best as I could!"

Shiffrin and Goggia are sponsored by the same manufacturer, and four years ago, two-time Olympic gold medallist Shiffrin lent her skis to Ester Ledecka ahead of the Czech's gold medal run in the super G at at PyeongChang 2018.

"As a (ski) racer, when you go through your skis and you use what you want and maybe you move on to a different pair, and your skis go back to the pool. That was a little bit what happened with me and Ester back in South Korea, that she was using my skis in the