American Mikaela Shiffin, center, lifts arms with runner-up Lena Duerr of Germany, left, and third-place finisher Andreja Slokar of Slovenia on the podium after the women's slalom at the World Cup finals on March 27 in Sun Valley, Idaho. (AP file photo)

Two-time Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin finally feels “like myself again” after recovering from a ski racing crash last season and lingering post-traumatic stress disorder.

Shiffrin described in an essay for The Players’ Tribune released Friday the physical and mental hurdles she needed to clear after her serious spill during a giant slalom race in Killington, Vermont, on Nov. 30. In the crash, something punctured Shiffrin’s side and caused severe damage to her oblique muscles.

“Everyone knows what it feels like to have a bad cough. But PTSD … it’s not like that,” the 30-year-old from Edwards, Colorado, wrote. “It comes in all shapes and sizes. Everyone experiences it in their own way, and no two cases are exactly alike.”

Shiffrin was leading after the first run of the GS that day in Killington. With the finish line in sight on her final run, she lost an edge and slid into a gate, flipping over her skis. The all-time winningest Alpine World Cup ski racer then slammed into another gate before coming to a stop in the protective fencing. To this day, she doesn’t know what led to the puncture wound, only that it was “a millimeter from pretty catastrophic,” she told The Associated Press.

In late January, Shiffrin returned to the World Cup circuit. The giant slalom, though, remained a cause of anxiety and she skipped the event at world championships.

Ever so steadily, she’s working on overcoming the mental trauma surrounding the GS as she gears up for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games. She won an Olympic gold medal in the discipline at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.

She’s been working with a psychologist to conquer her mental obstacles.

“I can admit that there were some extremely low moments,” recounted Shiffrin, who won her 100th career World Cup ski race in February. She and the therapist began looking at her recovery through the prism of PTSD.

“With me, I also think it’s possible that the crash I had at the beginning of 2024 in Cortina, and then Killington happening. … that those two crashes maybe built on one another,” Shiffrin said.

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing