Sawt Falasteen - Shiffrin bags record-equalling 15th world medal after Johnson combo

Shiffrin teamed up with Breezy Johnson, who won individual downhill gold just weeks after returning to action from a 14-month ban for three anti-doping whereabouts failures, to win the combined event.

The victory, thanks to Johnson's fourth-fastest downhill and Shiffrin's third fastest slalom, marked a stunning return to action for the latter following an abdominal puncture wound she sustained in a heavy fall in Killington in November.

It was Shiffrin's eighth career gold medal from the world championships and her overall tally of 15 ties her with German skier Christl Cranz, who was active in the 1930s.

But the 29-year-old American admitted that competing in the Austrian resort had been a daunting prospect after her crash.

Shiffrin announced Monday she would not be defending her giant slalom title through fear, citing PTSD-like problems with the discipline.

"It's scary, but I want to be here," Shiffrin said.

"In the last two weeks, I haven't felt that a lot. I haven't felt like I wanted to be here. I felt like it's too fucking terrifying."

Competing at a world champs, Shiffrin added, was more than just about battling for medals -- perhaps easy coming from the mouth of someone whose eight golds include four in the slalom, two in combined and one each in the giant slalom and super-G, as well as four silvers and three bronzes.

"So many people say the only thing that counts is medals. But in the end, when you break it down, it's how you act and it's how you support each other," she said.

"When I realised that the GS is not possible to race just yet, and I need more time training, and then consider the team combined... I talked with Breezy a little bit.

"She was like, 'Hey, it's not for the medal. Do it because this is crazy fun. Do it because you like skiing and because you want to be here'."

- Pain does go away -

Shiffrin said her injury "doesn't still hurt".

"And that's a lovely thing about muscles: as they heal, the pain does go away, and it's different from ligaments and knees and things you have to deal with for quite a long time after.

"The rest of my body hurts because I'm not really used to skiing still! But yeah, we're doing well. We're working through the mental stuff.

"We want it to be easy, and you want to get through the whole rehab process and do it strong. And once you get on snow, you're thinking, then it's going to be fun, and then my passion is going to outweigh any hard things.

"It's going step by step, and we're just going to get there. But there's so many variables to skiing that it's just not that easy."

Johnson, who has been a friend and competitor of Shiffrin's since the age of 11, hailed her teammate's return as "super impressive".

"I wanted to help her because I feel like she deserves it after everything that she's been through and all the ways that she's helped me from when I was just a little kid."

Silver medal in the combined went to the experienced Swiss pairing of Lara Gut-Behrami and Wendy Holdener, respectively their ninth and eighth world medals.

Gut-Behrami said Shiffrin was the kind of athlete that attracted fans and made the sport what it is.

"When we were kids, we were watching previous world champs, getting inspired by them, hoping that maybe one day we could do something similar," she said.

"And this is what she's doing, what we're trying to do for the future: to have the kids that are watching right now racing in a few years."

Shiffrin's teammate Lauren Macuga, the super-G bronze medallist who led the combined downhill times before finishing fourth, added: "It's so cool to see Mikaela getting her confidence back and coming right back into the game.

"This is great for her, for the world champs slalom that'll be coming up. I mean to be have a run on the hill and have it be a good run is a wonderful way to start off her world champs."

X.Habash--SF-PST