CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — The vibes never get old for Mikaela Shiffrin. Even now, four Olympics in.

There they were on Saturday, right where they’ve always been, as the most decorated skier of all time made the familiar trip into the upscale northern Italy resort town that’s long brought a sense of comfort.

Reminders of what’s at stake for Shiffrin over the next two weeks are everywhere. It’s hard to turn around without seeing Olympic branding splashed across something. Even, perhaps inadvertently, the moments you’d think she’d like to forget.

As the 30-year-old spoke about still being “wide-eyed” about returning to the kind of spotlight only the world’s biggest sporting event provides, the ghost of Shiffrin’s nightmarish trip to Beijing four years ago loomed quite literally a few feet away.

The promotional picture is of Shiffrin in full flight, body leaning into the next gate, eyes focused on the course ahead. Yet look a little closer, and the “Beijing” bib is hard to miss. Shiffrin left China without a medal, crashing out in three races and failing to reach the podium in three others.

Sure, she’ll carry the weight of that experience into the starting gate in Cortina. Just don’t think it’s any heavier than the slalom gold she won as a teenager in Sochi.

As if to offer proof, Shiffrin glanced over her shoulder at the image captured during one of the most competitively (if not physically) difficult stretches of her career and almost reflexively came up with a joke.

“It’s pretty cool,” she said, laughing. “(At least) it’s a picture where I was on my feet, you know?”

Yes, what happened in Beijing is part of her story. It’s hardly all of it. Even if she’s well aware that there will be a segment of the audience tuning in over the next 10 days that hasn’t watched her snap into a pair of skis since those draining days at Yanqing National Alpine Ski Centre in early 2022.

All she’s done in the interim is push her World Cup victory total to a record 108 and counting, sustain a freakish puncture wound to her abdomen during a giant slalom in Vermont in late 2024, and battle a combination of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and self-doubt to reach the podium in the GS last month for the first time in nearly two years.

Asked if it’s fair that what happens under the Olympic rings can have an outsized impact on the outward perception of her — when her resume suggests she’s the Greatest of All-Time (a moniker she shies away from) — and Shiffrin shrugs.

She described having the chance to ski on the world stage as a “beautiful gift.” If the price is the pressure of knowing that “judgments can be made on the sole moment when there’s so much else that has gone on,” it’s one she will pay again and again, no questions asked.

“Like Billie Jean King said, ‘Pressure is a privilege,’” Shiffrin said in a nod to the iconic quote by the tennis pioneer. “And that doesn’t always feel that way. But right now it really does feel like a privilege. I’m grateful for that.”

It’s hardly the only thing she’s grateful for. Shiffrin and her team have pared her competition schedule, sticking to her signature events — slalom, GS and the team combined — this time around. The narrower focus is working. She’s already clinched a record ninth World Cup slalom title and is regaining a racer’s mentality in giant slalom, a process that’s nudged her to the fringe of her comfort zone little by little while expanding that zone at the same time.

“I’m at a point now where I’m excited to ski a fast GS,” she said.

Only maybe up to a point. There are still a handful of turns during a race where a part of her brain sets off an alarm that rings “that’s enough.”

“That might not be anything but mental,” she said. “That might just be that I don’t particularly like to go that fast. I feel more like my aunt than my mom, who really likes to ski fast. But that’s another story for another time.”

The story for this time will be written in the coming days. She has no interest in defining what will pass for a “success.” That will come much later. If she’s learned anything since her Olympic debut as an 18-year-old, it’s not get over her skis when it comes to expectations. The most she can hope for is getting on “outside her ski,” something that only happens when you’re at your most confident.

“Outside ski is the boss,” she said. “If you’re on your outside ski, you’re in the driver’s seat.”

The wheel can remain slippery at times. Looking back, she understands her inability to get on that outside ski played a factor in the crash in Killington that sent a gate pole smashing into her abdomen before she went sprawling into the catch fence.

The physical wound has long since healed. The mental one? Well, that takes time. Shiffrin is getting there. Being at a place she loves — she thinks even with the Olympic branding everywhere, Cortina still feels like Cortina — helps.

The Olympics are a challenge. From the logistics of simply getting around to the outsized attention she commands at every turn, whether she wants it or not. She is trying to embrace it all.

Shiffrin was answering a question about the challenge of consistently competing at a high level in slalom when she stumbled upon a metaphor that describes what she’ll face in Italy, from external expectations to the inevitable comparisons of teammate Lindsey Vonn to the never-ending wrangling with her own self-confidence.

“It feels like ‘Whac-a-Mole,’ except for you’re the mole,” she said. “And you don’t want to be a mole. You want to be whacking, you know what I mean?”

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics