Mikaela Shiffrin’s remarkable Olympic achievement for Team USA left her with a rush of emotions in the moments following her historic run.
Things have only gotten more emotional since.
Shiffrin earned her big win in the women’s slalom with a combined time of 1 minute 39.10 seconds, which placed her 1.50 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. It was the largest margin of victory in any Olympic Alpine skiing event since 1998.
After she was presented the Olympic gold, Shiffrin’s fiancé, Norwegian professional alpine skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, offered her quite the show of support in an Instagram post on Wednesday morning.
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The post
“Mikaela, what you did today shows that your mental strength is out of this world,” posted Kilde. “Four years ago you left the Olympics with more questions than answers. Today you answered every single one.”
When mentioning Shiffrin’s past Olympics, Kilde referenced the 2022 Beijing Games, which she finished without a medal. She then began her 2026 Olympics in rough shape, finishing 15 out of 18 in slalom in the team combined event last week and then 11 in giant slalom over the weekend. After all that, she persevered to claim gold in slalom with the most dominant performance by an Olympic Alpine skier in decades.
“You shut all our mouths and showed the world who the queen is,” he added. “I’ve seen the work you’ve put in both physically and mentally over the last years — you are my biggest inspiration and I’m a proud fiancé to say it at least. I love you.”
The couple started dating in 2021 and were later engaged in April 2024 after Kilde sustained a significant injury earlier that year.
The response
Shiffrin then reposted Kilde’s post to her story with crying and heart emojis. Kilde later added his own story, captioned, “You won!!”
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Earlier, Shiffrin offered her own reflection on her gold-medal moment, expressing her pride for succeeding “in the face of fear and adrenaline and the potential for criticism and backlash.”
She continued, “I stood in the start gate, and looked out at the mountain and the course ahead, and my heartbeat nearly fell out of my butt. Still, when the countdown started, I pushed to chase, I pushed to earn. I pushed to dare and to dream. I pushed to believe. I won.”
It’s a moment Shiffrin and her beloved will never forget, as she is now the first U.S. Olympic skier to win three Olympic gold medals.
