Olympic slalom champion Mikaela Shiffrin probably will not be able to resume racing this season after suffering a partially torn medial collateral ligament and bruising to the tibial plateau of her right knee last Saturday in Sweden.

“I’m hopeful,” Shiffrin said in her father’s downtown Denver apartment building Tuesday after a workout on a spin bike. “I will be skiing by the end of the season, maybe training at full capacity. But back to competing before the end of the World Cup season, unlikely.”

It’s a matter of how soon the injuries heal. The good news is that neither injury requires surgery to repair.

“It’s just one of those situations, you take your heart off-line for a little bit,” said Shiffrin, 20. “There are going to be really bad days where I just want to cry. And there are going to be really good days where I feel like I could ski. If I have more good days than bad, and the rehab goes well, and I can get to the point where I can ski and not get tired …

“I don’t want to go back to racing just to be back racing. I’ve always had the mindset that when I get in the start, I want to have the ability to win the race. I probably won’t be 100 percent healed, if I get back to racing, this season.”

Shiffrin was injured Saturday during free-skiing warm-ups before a World Cup giant slalom in Are, Sweden, hyperextending the knee in a crash. Fellow Vail Valley resident Lindsey Vonn subsequently won the race.

“I came onto this traverse in the course and just went a little too hard in a right-footer (turn),” Shiffrin said. “What we’re thinking is that I pressured (the ski) on a patch of ice and my ski kind of slipped out. My knee collapsed, and then I hit a patch of grippy snow, kind of got ejected out of it, flipped over to my other side and then hyperextended, kind of slid with it hyperextended.”

Shiffrin’s hopes of winning her fourth straight World Cup slalom title now are gone. She is fortunate that this is the one year out of four that has neither an Olympics nor a world championships. She won world championships titles in 2013 and 2015 and the Olympic gold medal in 2014.

Prior to the injury, she won the first two slaloms of the season, both in Aspen, one by a World Cup record margin of 3.07 seconds.

For the first time in six years, she will be home for the Christmas holidays instead of living out of a suitcase on the ski circuit.

“It’s really weird,” Shiffrin said. “It’s going to be really bittersweet. It’s funny. Every single Christmas, I’m like, ‘I wish I could just teleport home for this evening, no jet lag, just be there.’ There’s no place like home on Christmas. It’s always my one real wish. Now I will be home for Christmas. And for New Year’s, too.”