Mikaela Shiffrin parted ways with her longtime coach, Mike Day, in the middle of a very successful World Cup skiing season, she announced Wednesday.

But the split didn’t slow her down on the slopes, as she won gold in the giant slalom at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships in France on Thursday.

“It’s been definitely some high levels of stress these days,” Shiffrin said after the win. “It was very, very difficult today to keep the focus and keep the intensity on the right level.”

World championship races are not part of the World Cup season, so Thursday’s gold medal run doesn’t count toward her pursuit of the overall World Cup wins record, though it does make her body of work so far this year even more impressive.

Shiffrin broke the women’s World Cup wins record in January, surpassing the 82-win mark set by fellow American skier Lindsey Vonn. She sits just one victory shy of tying the overall mark of 86 wins set by Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark.

While she still could match or break Stenmark’s record this season, she will do so without Day, who has coached her since 2016.

“After working with Mike Day for seven seasons, I’ve decided to move forward with new leadership on my team for the next phase of my career,” Shiffrin said in a statement released by the U.S. ski team. “I want to thank Mike and acknowledge all of his work and dedication over the last several years.”

The coach had been with Shiffrin when she placed second in a super-G race last week, then went with her to train in Orcières, France. The 27-year-old skier informed Day that she planned to move in a different direction with her coaching staff after the current season, and Day decided to leave immediately — in the midst of the world championships.

“It’s a shock for me that he took off,” U.S. alpine skiing director Patrick Riml told the Associated Press.

Shiffrin is set to race in slalom on Saturday in Meribel, France, as part of the world championships. Her assistant coach, Mark Mitter, remains with her, Riml said.

“We’ve got plenty of people here to support Mikaela and provide the training and the information she needs on race day to do her job,” Riml said. “She’s got great support.”

Three former U.S. Ski & Snowboard team members have sued their former coach, Peter Foley, for sex trafficking and harassment.

The national federation, its former CEO Gale “Tiger” Shaw and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic committee also were named in the lawsuit, which claims Foley, Shaw and the sporting organizations conspired to engage in, enable and cover up repeated acts of sexual misconduct.

Three-time Olympian Rosey Fletcher, 2010 Olympian Callan Chythlook-Sifsof and another former national teamer in Erin O’Malley are the plaintiffs. They claim Foley used his position to “coerce sexual acts through force, manipulation, emotional abuse, intimidation, and retaliation,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed last Thursday in Los Angeles.

“We are aware of the lawsuits that were filed,” a U.S. Ski & Snowboard spokesperson said. “U.S. Ski & Snowboard has not yet been served with the complaint nor has had an opportunity to fully review it.”

The USOPC also had not yet received the complaint as of Thursday and would not comment “on any specific details at this time,” though a spokesperson said the organization “takes every allegation of abuse very seriously.”

The lawsuit comes after three former athletes and a former employee of USSS accused Foley of sexual misconduct last March. Foley already was being investigated for allegations of sexual misconduct that emerged during the Olympics in February.

Fletcher claims in the lawsuit that Foley sexually assaulted her at a U.S. team camp when she was 19 years old. O’Malley says she was “sexually assaulted and harassed at USSS- and USOPC-sponsored competitions by Foley, who exploited their unequal power dynamic,” with the mental and verbal abuse starting when she was just 15 years old.

“Had the USSS taken the safety of their young athletes and employees seriously, Foley’s behavior could have been prevented,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, for nearly twenty years, coaches and executives at USSS enabled Foley’s behavior, refused to act, and helped cover up Foley’s behavior, allowing him to continue his pattern of abuse.”

Chythlook-Sifsof said in a series of Instagram posts during the Beijing Olympics that Foley had “taken naked photos of female athletes for over a decade” and had made a sexually explicit comment about her to another woman in 2014.

She also discussed a separated incident in the lawsuit, revealing that she was “sexually assaulted and raped by a male coach nearly three times her age from an opposing team” when she was 16. That assault took place during her first junior world championship event in Zermatt, Switzerland, in 2005.

“Although it was not a USSS coach that sexually assaulted Callan, USSS set the stage for the assault to occur and failed to change the toxic environment,” the lawsuit reads.

Sex trafficking, while generally understood as the arrangement of sex for money, legally can mean the exchange of sex for “anything of value,” Sigrid McCawley, the lead attorney representing the three snowboarders, told the Los Angeles Times.

“You have athletes who are being promised things like a position in the Olympics, a spot on the team and things of significant value in exchange for participating in this abuse and remaining quiet,” McCawley said. “This is well suited for a [sex trafficking] claim.”

Mikaela Shiffrin remains in pursuit of the record for career World Cup wins following a second-place finish Sunday in slalom.

The 27-year-old American skier sits one short of Ingemar Stenmark’s overall record of 86 wins. The Swedish skier retired from World Cup competition in 1989.

Already this season Shiffrin has broken Lindsey Vonn’s record of women’s World Cup wins. Vonn retired in 2019 with 82 wins; Shiffrin surpassed her with a giant slalom win last Tuesday and then claimed two more wins Wednesday and Saturday to reach 85 overall.

Shiffrin’s next shot at Stenmark’s record will come in March, when the World Cup season resumes. The season will take a break for the skiing world championships, which are scheduled to run Feb. 6-19 in France. World championship races do not count as World Cup wins.

The next World Cup races for Shiffrin will be in Finland on March 4-5 or in Sweden the following week.

“I don’t have any expectations going into it,” Shiffrin said. “It’s just like every race of the season, trying to take it all in and enjoy — enjoy my skiing, enjoy when the other athletes are skiing better. Because there is always some to learn from that.”

Mikaela Shiffrin won her 83rd World Cup race Tuesday, claiming the women’s record for the most World Cup victories in alpine skiing.

Her win broke a tie with her former teammate and fellow American Lindsey Vonn. The 27-year-old had tied Vonn’s mark of 82 wins on Jan. 8 with a grand slalom victory in Slovenia.

The record-breaking win also came in the giant slalom. Shiffrin finished ahead of Lara Gut-Behrami by 0.45 seconds for her ninth victory of the season and her 18th total in giant slalom. She holds a record 51 wins in slalom.

“It might take me a little bit to figure out what to say,” Shiffrin said afterward. “I don’t know what to say right now.”

Shiffrin will have the opportunity to increase her record Wednesday, with another giant slalom scheduled at Italy’s Kronplatz resort. She’ll next set her eyes on the overall record of 86 World Cup victories, set by Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark.

No alpine skier outside the trio of Shiffrin, Vonn and Stenmark has recorded even 70 wins.

This World Cup season features seven more technical races (slalom and giant slalom), which are Shiffrin’s strength. She’s won eight of those 14 races this season.

In a recent interview, Stenmark said it’s a matter of if, not when Shiffrin breaks his record – and by how much.

“I don’t know who will be the first but I think that [Mikaela] Shiffrin will win more than 100 and it doesn’t make me sad at all,” Stenmark told Olympics.com.

Simone Biles remains “up in the air” on a potential return to gymnastics, she said in an event Thursday at her Houston gym.

In the same vein, the seven-time Olympic medalist has not decided if she will compete for a spot on Team USA at the Paris Games in 2024, per Houston Chronicle reporter Danielle Lerner.

Biles shared similar sentiments Monday while speaking at the National Retail Federation convention. When asked about the next Olympics, the 25-year-old said she is “trying to figure it out right now.”

“Obviously, mental health comes first. I’m still in therapy and I’m still doing everything so that I can be the best version of myself,” she said. “So I’ll be in Paris, but don’t know if that is on the floor with those girls or in the stands just cheering.”

While Biles competed for Team USA in the last two Summer Games, she withdrew from the team and individual all-around competitions in Tokyo in 2021, citing her mental health. She competed in the balance beam final, winning bronze.

“Sometimes if you make decisions, you might be the only one standing that believes in yourself,” Biles said. “At those times, you really have to dig deep and think of the reason why you’re doing it, who you are, what you stand for, what you want to accomplish.”

Naomi Osaka once again tops the list of the highest-paid female athletes in the world, bringing in $51.1 million in 2022, according to Forbes.

She’s followed by Serena Williams, who earned $41.3 million. Eileen Gu, who gained popularity following her performance at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, brought in $20.1 million, which included $20 million in endorsements.

In total, the 25 highest-paid female athletes in the world made roughly $285 million this year before taxes and agents’ fees. The top 10 of those athletes made up for $194 million of that total, a 17 percent increase from 2021.

Eight of the 10 made at least $10 million in 2022 for the first time since Forbes introduced the rankings in 2008. That number also doubled from a year ago.

“I think everybody’s seeing a tremendous amount of momentum with women’s sports and women’s sports sponsorships,” Cameron Wagner, Chief Client Officer of Elevate Sports Ventures, told Forbes. “We’ve made a ton of progress. We have a ton of progress left to be made, but brands are starting to see the value in women’s sports here and today as a driver of their business.”

The year brought increases across women’s sports, including for England’s players following their Euros win. The Athletic recently detailed how their endorsement deals have skyrocketed in the months following the title.

Women’s soccer sponsorships have also increased. FIFA recently released a report detailing how 77 percent of women’s soccer leagues had a title sponsor in 2022, an increase from 66 percent in 2021.

While tennis players still make up the majority of the top 10, golfers have also increased their earnings after the LPGA introduced record tournament purses. That should only increase in the coming year as the tour stands to break records once again with its offerings.

The top 10

  1. Naomi Osaka, Tennis – $51.1 mil
  2. Serena Williams, Tennis – $41.3 mil
  3. Eileen Gu, Freestyle Skiing – $20.1 mil
  4. Emma Raducanu, Tennis – $18.7 mil
  5. Iga Swiatek, Tennis – $14.9 mil
  6. Venus Williams, Tennis – $12.1 mil
  7. Coco Gauff, Tennis – $11.1 mil
  8. Simone Biles, Gymnastics – $10 mil
  9. Jessica Pegula, Tennis – $7.6 mil
  10. Minjee Lee, Golf – $7.3 mil

Mikaela Shiffrin is still trying to find her groove.

She came in second on Sunday in the slalom, with Swiss skier Wendy Holdener taking the win in Italy. She finished 0.47 seconds ahead of Shiffrin. Petra Vlhová, who led after the first run, took third.

It’s Holdener’s second World Cup slalom win of her career.

“It is amazing. I can believe it, but it is unreal, I guess,” Holdener said. “My second run was the best run I showed in a race actually.”

Shiffrin took home her fourth World Cup title last season, tying her for the second-most world cup titles by any woman with fellow American Lindsey Vonn.

The Olympic gold medalist currently leads the slalom standings after winning the first two races of the season, although Holdener is now tied with the skier.

Vllhová won the slalom title last season.

“I am quite exhausted, but I think I had some really good turns and some things to fix for the next slalom,” Shiffrin said. “Anyway, it is a step from Killington and a step in the right direction. It was two really difficult days. There was some really impressive skiing from Wendy and a really impressive weekend from Petra.

“I had a lot of fatigue from yesterday. … You just try to recover the best you can. Today, I am mostly happy with my performance but not really satisfied.”