This Italian Skier Lent Her Rival Her Medal-Winning Skis To Compete At The Olympics And Left A Sweet Note
In a heartwarming moment at the Beijing 2022 Olympics, Italian skier Sofia Goggia lent her skis to Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin, with a note reading, “Fly Mika, You Can.”
In a heartwarming moment at the Beijing 2022 Olympics, Italian skier Sofia Goggia lent her skis to Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin, with a note reading, “Fly Mika, You Can.”
Goggia, 29, was not competing in the combined event, which includes one downhill run and one slalom run, and let Shiffrin borrow the skis the former had used to win silver in the downhill event.
The 26-year-old American athlete then clocked her fastest time on the same skis during a training run.
Despite bringing 60 pairs of skis to Beijing, Shiffrin opted to use her fellow competitor’s skis during the official competition.
“She…wrote a small message on them on a sticky note, and I saw it in the start and I almost started crying,” Shiffrin told NBC.
Shiffrin ended up finishing 5th in the downhill segment before earning a DNF, did not finish, in the slalom segment.
In the true spirit of the Games, Goggia and Shiffrin’s touching camaraderie is a wholesome sight.
Goggia, who recently suffered a partially-torn ACL and fractured fibula during a crash just two weeks before the Olympics, came back to win a silver medal in the downhill event.
“I hope that everybody shows her all of the support that she deserves because it’s … a medal that was very, very, very hard-fought” Shiffrin said about Goggia’s performance. “She won the silver, and it’s really impressive.”
Shiffrin, a two-time US Olympic gold medalist and medal favorite at the Games, has experienced a tough run over the past two weeks, with a string of disappointments in all five individual women’s alpine skiing events.
She earned three DNFs in slalom, giant slalom, and combined, as well as a 9th and 18th place finish in super-G and downhill.
“That’s never happened in my entire career, so I don’t understand it, but there was so much positive that’s happened in the last couple weeks just by how much it really stinks,” Shiffrin said. “Sometimes you just have to take it, I guess.”
Team USA placed fourth in the mixed team event in Sunday, Feb 20th.
“I have had a lot of disappointing moments at these Games — today is not one of them,” Shiffrin, the most decorated American apline skier in history with 11 medals, said. “Today is my favorite memory.”
“This was the best possible way that I could imagine ending the Games, skiing with such strong teammates,” she added.
2022 downhill silver medalist @goggiasofia left a note for @MikaelaShiffrin (along with her downhill skis) that read, “FLY MIKA, YOU CAN.” When she saw the note, Mikaela almost started crying. ❤️🙏#StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/9dD2KIdNAf
— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) February 17, 2022
Mikaela Shiffrin brought SIXTY pairs of skis to the #WinterOlympics 😳 pic.twitter.com/tjNDoID919
— On Her Turf (@OnHerTurf) February 17, 2022
