Mikaela Shiffrin Slips Up, Shares Laugh With TV Hosts After Gold Medal Win

Chatting with a trio of TODAY hosts after her big Olympic win, American ski racing superstar Mikaela Shiffrin let an f-bomb slide, joking that the espresso martinis she was served the day before could have played a role in the on-air curse. 

She and the hosts shared a laugh afterwards, turning to the topic of those espresso martinis. 

Shiffrin explained that she hadn’t been drinking for around two years and, when she claimed gold, “everybody kept handing me espresso martinis because I said that it was my destiny to have one last night … which may be some of the reason for the swearing, so sorry again.” 

At the same time, those around her told her to pace herself, she said.

“Through the course of the evening, I probably had a total of just one,” she said. “I felt actually great this morning. ” 

“If it was possible to love you anymore than we already did, today’s the day,” one of the hosts, Hoda Kotb, said.

Alongside the other hosts, Carson Daly and Craig Melvin, she assured Shiffrin that the curse was totally fine. Tap or click to watch below. Keep reading for more.

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It came as Shiffrin was discussing her late father, who passed away in 2020. She told the hosts that before her second slalom run, she wanted to be able to communicate with him, but couldn’t.

“But I thought, what the heck? Maybe it’s OK if you talk to him, even if you don’t hear him respond, you know, in the normal way,” she said. “It was a little bit more spiritual than how I normally am acting; I’m a little bit more rational, logical.”

“At the same time, I think there’s been definitely a spiritual journey I’ve been on the last years that I just, I don’t know, I took a moment and I just said, f**king,” she continued, before realizing what she said.

In the Olympic slalom race, Shiffrin executed a dominant gold margin performance, winning by the largest margin in an Olympic alpine race in decades. 

The win came amid intense speculation around her ability to perform at the Olympics—despite being the winningest racer of all time, she hadn’t won an Olympic medal since 2018.

In another candid statement from Shiffrin, this time on social media, she detailed her post-race feelings.

“I won,” she wrote, in part. “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. I pushed to chase, I pushed to earn. I pushed to dare and to dream. I pushed to believe.”

“I won. I f**king won. This, right here, is the lottery, and I won,” she continued, in an apparent nod to the role chance can play on snowy, variable race courses. “Oh, and I got a medal too.”

The moment on TODAY recalled another fan favorite zinger from Olympian and snowboarder Shaun White, who, years ago, after claiming halfpipe Olympic gold, was asked by CNN about his plane ride home.

He told the interviewer that he had “unlimited service … I was getting drinks, I was getting snacks.”

“Wait a minute,” the interviewer said. “Drinks? You’re 19 years old.”

“I’m talking about Mountain Dews, baby,” he said, smiling.