MILAN — In her third and final opportunity to medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Team USA superstar skier Mikaela Shiffrin ended her struggles at the Olympics during two emphatic runs Wednesday that earned her gold in slalom. Shiffrin stormed down a Cortina d’Ampezzo course with nearly 600 feet of vertical drop to finish in 47.13 seconds after her first run, 0.82 of a second ahead of the rest of the field. In slalom, skiers take two runs and the times are combined to determine medals. Follow along for live coverage Four hours later, Shiffrin stood at the starting gate for her second and final run, knowing she was less than 51 seconds away from her first medal since 2018. It was by no means guaranteed. The second-to-last rider before Shiffrin broke a pole halfway down the course. And the skier immediately preceding her, Germany’s Lena Duerr, who was in second place after her first run, hooked the first gate and immediately stopped her run within seconds. Shiffrin’s final run, in contrast, was a …