In one of the most moving moments of the 2025–26 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup season, Mikaela Shiffrin was overcome with emotion as her fiancé, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, returned to competition for the first time since a life-altering crash in January 2024.
The Norwegian speed specialist, sidelined for 685 days and five surgeries, finished 22nd in Thursday’s Super-G at Copper Mountain. While the result was secondary, the sight of Kilde crossing the finish line healthy and upright triggered an outpouring of joy from Shiffrin in the leader box.
Visibly shaking and wiping away tears, the five-time overall Crystal Globe winner rushed to embrace Kilde the moment he removed his skis. The couple held each other for several seconds in a hug that quickly became the defining image of the early-season racing.
“It was pure happiness,” Shiffrin said afterward, voice still cracking. “We’ve both been through so much these past two years. Seeing him push out of the start gate today — and then make it to the finish — felt like the end of a very long chapter.”
Kilde’s crash on the Lauberhorn in Wengen left him with a dislocated shoulder, severe lacerations, nerve damage, and a persistent infection that mirrored the complications Shiffrin endured after her own fall in Cortina three weeks earlier. The couple spent much of 2024 and early 2025 rehabilitating side-by-side, often supporting each other through repeated setbacks.
“Those five words — ‘It’s going to be alright’ — became our mantra,” Kilde told reporters. “We said them to each other on the hardest days, and today we finally got to live them.”
Although Kilde’s time was 1.78 seconds off winner Marco Odermatt, the 33-year-old described the run as “the biggest victory of my career so far.”
Shiffrin, who won her record 103rd World Cup race in Gurgl, Austria last weekend, now turns her focus to this weekend’s technical events on home snow: giant slalom on Saturday and slalom on Sunday, where she will be the clear favorite.
For now, however, the spotlight belongs to a shared triumph that transcends results.
Two champions.
One long, painful road.
One unforgettable hug at the bottom.
Welcome back, Aleksander.
The mountain — and Mikaela — have been waiting.
