Industry News
U.S. ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin finally announced her return to competitive ski racing following her injury during the Giant Slalom race at Killington, Vermont, in November.
Shiffrin had caught an edge during her second Giant Slalom run and went flying in a forward roll into the B-nets. She suffered a puncture to her abdomen, which she and her team believe may have been caused by her ski pole.
The puncture left a cavity that filled with old blood, also known as a hematoma. While it was initially hoped that the hematoma would be absorbed naturally by her body and she could return to skiing soon, the blood was not draining properly in Shiffrin’s case, and her wound required additional surgery during which some of the old blood was washed out. In addition, a Jackson-Pratt (JP) drain was put in to remove further bleeding from the wound via a thin tube. The advantage of a JP drain is that doctors can judge from the color of the fluid in the tube whether the blood is old or fresh and how the wound is healing.
Today, January 23, Shiffrin shared videos of herself during training on her social media channels. The video is captioned and ends with the words “Courchevel 1/30… See You Soon,” which is the date of the Slalom race at Courchevel, France.
Her return to competitive ski racing at Courchevel at the end of the month will be exactly two months after her crash in Killington, during which the U.S. athlete suffered a puncture to her oblique abdominal muscles. We cannot wait to see the most successful Alpine skiing athlete of all time back on the World Cup circuit.
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