Mikaela Shiffrin overcame grief, crashes and her own self-doubt to win slalom gold again

The greatest American skier of all time won her first Olympic medal in 2014. The 12 years in between have been marked by brutal ups and downsA lot can happen in 12 years. If you’re Mikaela Shiffrin, as a teenager you can become the youngest ever person to win the Olympic slalom, stack a couple more medals at the next Olympics, become the most successful World Cup skier of all time with a record 108 victories, go 10 more Olympic races in a row over three Winter Games without reaching the podium, overcome the two biggest crashes of your career and subsequent battles with self-doubt and post-traumatic stress disorder and eroding trust in your own skiing, and then bring it all back home with a second Olympic slalom gold.You can also lose your dad.Shiffrin, considered by many the greatest alpine skier in history, saw her incandescent career come full circle on Wednesday beneath the jagged limestone peaks above Cortina d’Ampezzo, winning her signature race by 1

‘Princess Anne thought I was Joe Marler’: Heyes mixed up in case of mistaken identity

Anyone who tuned in to the celebrity version of The Traitors last year will be familiar with the former England rugby player Joe Marler. With the exception, it turns out, of Princess Anne who was involved in a case of mistaken identity during the Calcutta Cup pre-match formalities at Murrayfield last Saturday.Clearly unaware Marler had retired from rugby 15 months ago, the Princess Royal stopped for a chat with her new favourite prop while being introduced to the England team in her role as patron of Scottish Rugby. She even confided how amusing she had found him on Celebrity Traitors, which would have been fine had the player in front of her been Marler rather than another bearded English front-rower, Joe Heyes.“She thought I was Joe Marler which was … quite upsetting,” said Heyes

Soft toys and a jagged edge: how Russia is circling the Winter Olympics

First came the reverberating cheers. Then a deluge of soft toys lobbed from the stands. But across the face of the brilliant Russian skater Adeliia Petrosian there was only the faintest of smiles. For now.So far at these Winter Olympics, a Russian is yet to win a medal

‘My DNA is in this car’: Lewis Hamilton revved up for Ferrari in new F1 season

Lewis Hamilton believes he is in the “best place” he has been at Ferrari, with a new car that carries his “DNA”.The seven-time champion failed to take a podium place for the first time and finished sixth in the drivers’ championship, behind his teammate Charles Leclerc in fifth in his debut season. By the end, he was clearly disenchanted, describing his first year at Ferrari as a “nightmare”.The Scuderia have looked promising in pre-season, and in Bahrain at the third and final test Hamilton, who has regrouped over the winter, presented a buoyant figure, optimistic about the forthcoming challenge.“I’ve gone through quite a bit and left everything, all of last year, behind me,” he said

Very good dog invades course but falls short of medal glory at Winter Olympics

A local dog has missed out on a historic cross-country medal at the Winter Olympics despite a lung-bursting surge in the homestretch.Nazgul, who according to NPR lives at a nearby hotel in Tesero, broke on to the course on Wednesday morning and sprinted for the line behind Croatia’s Tena Hadzic as she came to the end of the qualifying race for the women’s team cross-country sprint. Even if he had completed the entire race, Nazgul’s time would not have counted as he is male. And a dog.“I was like, ‘Am I hallucinating?” Hadzic said of her encounter with Nazgul, a Czechoslovakian wolfdog

Mikaela Shiffrin storms to stunning slalom gold to make Winter Olympic history

With one last chance to break her ­barren Olympic run stretching back eight years, Mikaela ­Shiffrin ­delivered in style. The 30-year-old American surged to victory in the women’s slalom on a sun-splashed Wednesday in the Dolomites with a two-run time of 1min 39.10sec, becoming the first US skier to win three Olympic gold medals.Switzerland’s Camille Rast, the reigning world champion and only woman to have beaten Shiffrin in her signature discipline this season, came in a yawning 1.50sec behind for the silver – the largest winning margin in any Olympic alpine skiing event since 1998 – while Anna Swenn-Larsson of Sweden took the bronze