CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — On Wednesday, Mikaela Shiffrin will enter the start gate of the Olympic slalom as the favorite for gold. On Sunday, she took a giant step toward that result.

Shiffrin was not expected to medal in Sunday’s giant slalom. Despite being the 2018 Olympic gold medalist in the event, and the all-time World Cup wins leader, Shiffrin only recently returned to a GS podium in January. Less than a year ago, she didn’t know if she would ever stand in another giant slalom start gate.

“After the injury last year and then returning to GS racing, I was so far off,” Shiffrin said Sunday. “I felt like there was no hope to be faster.”

That’s why her 11th-place finish in Sunday’s giant slalom felt like a win for the 30-year-old and why, all smiles in the mixed zone after the race, she called it “a beautiful day of racing.” Shiffrin skied smooth, tight lines with confidence and said she was pushing and “turning nervous energy into intensity and taking power from the course.” Her result was within a few tenths of the podium, a positive step in the right direction.

“To be here now, just in touch of the fastest women, that’s huge for me,” Shiffrin said. “I’m so proud.”

Fifteen months ago in November 2024, Shiffrin crashed in a GS race in Killington, Vermont, on a day she was attempting to win her 100th World Cup title at her home race. She slid off course and into the safety nets and, once in the ambulance, medics realized she had been impaled in her abdomen, likely by the slalom gate she crashed into. Her physical recovery from the injury was grueling. Her mental journey back to racing took longer.

Shiffrin has spoken openly about managing her struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder as she fought her way back. In an essay for The Players’ Tribune last May, she wrote that after the crash, her mind and body had become disconnected — the ski racing equivalent of the “twisties.”

“You absolutely need to be able to trust that what you see happening in your mind is fully connected with what you then do with your body,” she wrote. “If that connection is off … the danger level increases exponentially.”

Shiffrin began to find her footing again through therapy and exposure — and by letting go of the outcome. When she stopped caring about times, podiums or medals, fear began to loosen its grip. In January, she finished third in a World Cup giant slalom, her first podium since the crash.

And then she came to the Olympics, where expectations and pressure are unavoidable and unlike on the World Cup circuit, another opportunity comes only once every four years. The first week of these Games alone have seen several top athletes succumb to the pressure, including Shiffrin, who finished 15th of 18 racers in the slalom leg of last week’s team combined, squandering the lead her teammate, Breezy Johnson, had built after the downhill.

That’s why on Sunday, she said she was taking only positives from her performance in the GS, an event she hasn’t raced consistently since her injury. “I was like, I don’t know, maybe I’ll never race GS again,” Shiffrin said. “And here we are, in a totally different position, and it shows that you can fight.”

Wednesday’s slalom will be different.

The slalom is Shiffrin’s best event. Seventy-one of her record 108 World Cup wins have come in the slalom — more than any skier in any discipline ever — and this season alone, she has won seven of eight starts and already clinched her ninth slalom Crystal Globe.

But Shiffrin has a rocky relationship with the Olympics. She’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist, yet she hasn’t earned a medal in her past eight Olympic starts. For Shiffrin, as for most ski racers, success has been punctuated with crashes, injuries, setbacks and comebacks, as well as big wins in big moments when the world is watching.

At 18, she became the youngest Olympic slalom champion in history in Sochi. She hasn’t won Olympic slalom gold since.

In Pyeongchang, she left with giant slalom gold — and disappointment.

In Beijing, she unraveled. Expected to medal in at least three of the six events she raced, she medaled in none.

“I don’t want Beijing to be the reason that I’m scared of the Olympics,” Shiffrin told Olympics.com last fall. Shortly before arriving in Cortina, she recorded an episode of her podcast in which she talked about coming to terms with an awareness that “the Olympics are not designed for the comfort or to prioritize performance of the athletes and teams competing.”

The season after her disappointing Beijing Games, Shiffrin broke the World Cup wins record. She suffered injuries over the next two seasons, has been unstoppable in the slalom this year and has had a confounding start to her fourth Olympics.

Even for the greatest of all time, success is not linear.

On Wednesday, Shiffrin has two runs to trust her mind and her body — and to trust herself to be the best in the world. She said she and her team had a “really wonderful” session of slalom training and that she’s heading into her final race with more knowledge of what it takes to ski fast on this course, and with a new mentality.

“There were a lot of turns where I was quite quick on the team combined day, and a handful where there was just a misalignment,” Shiffrin said. “And then my mentality was not matching the day. So I’m going into [Wednesday] with my eyes open that we can see a very similar situation [to last week]. And I will try to handle it differently.”

On Wednesday, handling it differently might mean more than gold.

One week after suffering a fractured left hand, North Carolina star Caleb Wilson is learning to play with a cast on his non-shooting hand and is inching toward returning “soon,” coach Hubert Davis said.

Davis said Wilson, who suffered the injury in a loss to Miami on Feb. 10, has been a supportive teammate as the No. 16 Tar Heels make their push toward Selection Sunday.

“Caleb, he is great,” Davis said Monday night on his semiweekly radio show. “I think if I said ‘OK,’ I think he would play with his cast on or his splint. I think he would. He’s just champing at the bit to come back because obviously he loves to play, but he loves his teammates and he loves playing here.”

Added Davis: “He’ll be back on the floor soon, so that’ll be great.”

Wilson, who is averaging 19.8 points and 9.4 rebounds, has set a UNC freshman record by scoring in double figures in all 24 games he’s played this season. Before the Miami loss, he scored 23 points in UNC’s home win over rival Duke on Feb. 7.

Wilson, a projected top-five pick in the 2026 NBA draft per ESPN, left the game against Miami after suffering the injury before returning in the second half. He scored just 12 points, his lowest output of the season.

Davis said they didn’t know the severity of the injury until the team returned to Chapel Hill and an MRI revealed the fracture.

The university on Thursday said Wilson is out “indefinitely.”

Davis said Wilson is already in practice hoping to come back soon. He credited the freshman with avoiding a “woe is me” attitude and instead being focused on supporting his team.

“He did the exact opposite,” Davis said. “He’s in practice. He’s dribbling with his right hand. He’s in the huddles.”

Before Wilson’s injury, North Carolina was ranked ninth in adjusted offensive efficiency since Jan. 3, according to barttorvik.com. The win over Duke capped a five-game winning streak for a UNC team that was biting its nails on Selection Sunday last year but should avoid a similar fate this year, depending on Wilson’s status.

UNC defeated Pitt 79-65 on Saturday without both Wilson and standout Henri Veesaar. Davis said he watched the film of that game and praised Wilson’s demeanor on the sideline, which he said gave his team a boost in a game with a short-handed roster.

UNC will again be without Wilson and Veesaar (lower-body injury) for Tuesday night’s game against rival NC State.

North Carolina’s slate includes four upcoming matchups against top-35 KenPom teams, including a rematch with Duke in Durham on March 7 in the regular-season finale for both teams.

“You will not have a better player, person and teammate than Caleb,” Davis said. “It’s just impossible. There is just no way you can do it. What a great example of when things weren’t particularly going his way in regards to his hand, he’s still a great teammate.”

Paris Saint-Germain forward Ousmane Dembélé‘s frustrating season continued when he came off with an apparent injury during the first half of the Champions League playoff against Monaco on Tuesday.

Désiré Doué came on for Dembélé, scored twice and played a part in the other goal as PSG took a 3-2 lead into the return leg next Wednesday in Paris.

Dembélé was doubtful for the game because of a leg problem and came off in the 26th minute at Stade Louis II. The Ballon d’Or winner has been hampered by injuries this season. Shortly before coming off, television images showed him twice rubbing the back of his left calf and then pulling his sock down.

Coach Luis Enrique said he did not take any risks by starting Dembélé, who was PSG’s top scorer last season with 35 goals.

“We know what shape each player is in. No risk, he trained normally,” Luis Enrique said. “We’ll have to see if there’s an injury. He took a knock in the first 15 minutes, then he couldn’t run.”

PSG was trailing 2-0 when Dembélé came off but rallied to be level 2-2 by halftime.

Dembélé was injured early in the season when playing for France and then came off in the first half in similar circumstances against Bayern Munich in November.

He also struggled with injuries at his former club Barcelona.

Doué pulled a goal back for PSG two minutes later with a low shot into the bottom right corner. Doué cupped his hands over his ears when he celebrated as if to say he was blocking out recent criticism of his performances.

“The coach makes his choices. It’s always a collective effort whether we win or lose,” Doué said. “The most important thing is to win in this kind of game.”

Prior to the game, Luis Enrique had been critical of some of his star players after they fell out of first place in Ligue 1 following a loss to Rennes on Friday.

Doué was involved in PSG’s equalizer close to halftime when his shot was pushed away by goalkeeper Philipp Köhn. The ball came straight to right back Achraf Hakimi inside the penalty area and he beat Köhn with a low shot into the bottom left.

Doué grabbed his second of the night in the 67th when he collected a pass from Warren Zaïre-Emery on the edge of the penalty area and guided a low shot into the right corner.

Köhn had made a good save to stop Vitinha‘s penalty in the 22nd and Monaco midfielder Aleksandr Golovin was sent off for a clumsy foul on Vitinha early in the first half.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.