After more than two years of hellish rehabilitation, surgeries, and doubt, Petra Vlhová is done with just surviving — she’s ready to compete again.
The Slovak superstar, once Mikaela Shiffrin’s fiercest rival, is training hard on the Stelvio Glacier in Italy alongside her new coach Mario Rafetzeder. At 31, she celebrated her birthday this week by posting optimistic photos from summer on-snow camp, signaling the strongest sign yet of a complete return for the 2026-27 World Cup season.
For the first time since her devastating January 2024 crash in Jasná — where she tore her ACL and MCL — Vlhová is entering an offseason without the shadow of medical recovery hanging over every session.
Her journey back has been brutal. What started as a expected one-season absence turned into two full years after a second surgery for cartilage damage. But by early 2026, she earned medical clearance and set her sights on the Milan-Cortina Olympics. Slovakia backed their champion, and Vlhová delivered one of the most inspiring stories of the Games.
She made her long-awaited return in the team combined, then lined up for the Olympic slalom — the same event where she won gold in Beijing 2022. Though she finished 20th, simply completing both runs after 26 months away felt like victory. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for more than two years,” she wrote. “Not because of how it turned out but because I never gave up.”
Now the real mission begins.
Vlhová brings serious firepower: 31 World Cup wins, 73 podiums, an overall title in 2020-21, multiple slalom globes, and World Championship gold in giant slalom. Before her injury, she was the only skier consistently pushing Shiffrin across full seasons. At the time of her crash, she sat just 25 points behind Shiffrin in the slalom standings with three wins and seven podiums that season.
Shiffrin herself has openly admitted the void: “We’re missing somebody really big today. We missed Petra a lot. I’ve grown to love the battles with her.”
With Vlhová sidelined, Shiffrin dominated the 2025-26 slalom circuit. A new generation is rising, but none have matched the consistent threat Vlhová once posed.
If the 31-year-old can recapture even a fraction of her pre-injury form, the upcoming World Cup season just got dramatically more exciting. The tech events are about to heat up.
The queen is back in her office — and she’s not coming to watch.
