Mikaela Shiffrin

American alpine skier

• Born: March 13, 1995
• Place of Birth: Vail, Colorado

Place of birth: Vail, Colorado

Significance: Mikaela Shiffrin became a world champion alpine skier when she won her first World Championship gold medal in 2013. A three-time Olympian, she won a gold medal at the 2014 Olympic Games and gold and silver medals at the 2018 Olympic Games. Shiffrin's eighty-third World Cup race win in 2023 broke the record for most World Cup race wins by a female alpine skier.

Background

Mikaela Shiffrin was born on March 13, 1995, in Vail, Colorado, to Jeff Shiffrin, an anesthesiologist, and Eileen Shiffrin, a nurse. She has an older brother, Taylor. Shiffrin’s parents had been ski racers growing up, and they introduced their children to skiing when they were toddlers. They trained them using a process-oriented approach that built on the mastery of individual techniques through drills and practice.

The family moved to New Hampshire when Shiffrin was eight. There, in the Appalachians, she learned to ski on icier conditions than in the West, similar to those in which she would later compete in Europe. Shiffrin has stated that from the time she was young, she wanted to master technique more than she wanted to win races. She did, however, compete in races at the junior level. Her technique and skiing ability at those races caught the eye of elite skiers and coaches, and they considered her a racing phenom and skiing prodigy.

At twelve, Shiffrin started training with ski coach Kirk Dwyer, the headmaster of Burke Mountain Academy, an elite ski racing academy in Vermont. Her training was cut short when the family returned to Vail two years later. Unhappy in Vail, Shiffrin returned to Vermont in 2009 and enrolled at Burke, where her brother also was enrolled. Her mother followed her to Vermont and stayed nearby so she could assist in her children’s training. In 2010, Shiffrin competed on the international youth circuit, where she excelled on the giant slalom. She also won gold medals at the 2010 Trofeo Topolino and the 2010 Whistler Cup. In 2011, she won a bronze medal at the World Junior Championship games.

Alpine Skiing Career

Shiffrin began racing in Europe during the 2011–12 season. She traveled the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup circuit with her mother, who supplemented Shiffrin’s official coaching with videos, critiques, and customized performance improvement strategies. Shiffrin was frequently described as a prodigy by critics. During her first season on the World Cup circuit, she earned her first World Cup podium finish, coming in third in a slalom event in Austria. During the 2012–13 season, she won her first World Cup victory in December 2012 for the slalom event. The next month, she won her second World Cup gold medal, in Zagreb, Croatia, and she finished the season in first place for the World Cup slalom title. She was also named the World Cup’s rookie of the year in 2012 and the Longines Rising Star in 2013.

Shiffrin went into the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, as a strong contender and favorite in the slalom, her best event. She competed in both the slalom and giant slalom events, winning a gold medal in the slalom. Following the 2014 Olympics, Shiffrin implemented a new training program to become more adept in all alpine disciplines. During high school, she had been a champion junior skier at the giant slalom, but once she started competing professionally, she focused only on slalom, and her skill in the giant slalom declined. Shiffrin stated that her goal was to become an elite skier who excelled in both technique and speed, in all alpine skiing events.

Shiffrin won her first World Cup giant slalom event in 2014. She then became the 2014 and 2015 World Cup champion for the slalom event. During the 2016–17 season, she demonstrated mastery of the giant slalom when she won a combined alpine and slalom in just her second competition of that event; she later won three giant slaloms. At the end of the season, she won the women’s 2017 World Cup overall title, compiling more points across all five disciplines than any other female skier.

During the 2017–18 World Cup season, Shiffrin took first place in two giant slalom races and placed second in a third giant slalom race. She also won five slalom races, a downhill race, and two head-to-head slaloms. She ended the season with the 2018 World Cup overall title.

Shiffrin went into the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, as one of the best slalom skiers in the world, with three slalom World Championship wins and four World Cup slalom titles. She qualified to compete in all five alpine skiing events, with the goal of medaling in three events. She won a gold medal for the giant slalom but finished fourth in the slalom event. After the rest of her events were postponed and rescheduled into a condensed period of time due to weather, Shiffrin withdrew from the super-G and downhill events. She then won a silver medal in the alpine combined, her final race of the 2018 Olympics.

Shiffrin enjoyed an unparalleled 2018–19 season. She won seventeen World Cup events, the most ever in a single season; set a precedent for the sport with first-place finishes in different speed categories (overall, giant slalom, slalom, and super-G); and received $1 million in prize money, the largest purse awarded to any skier in one season. For her accomplishments, she was named skier of the year.

Although an abbreviated season, 2019–20 proved to be a relatively successful one for Shiffrin as well. She finished first in seven races, including securing a second downhill title in January 2020, and finished in the top three in another five races. On January 26, 2020, in Bansko, Bulgaria, Shiffrin won her sixty-sixth career World Cup race. The victory there put her second only to Ingemar Stenmark in career wins.

Shiffrin's dominant streak was interrupted by her father's accidental death that February. She took a six-week hiatus, after which she intended to resume racing. The season was cut short, and the World Cup finals were canceled because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, costing her the championship as her standings had fallen during her time away. She traveled to Europe that October to begin the 2020–21 ski season but expressed doubts as to how much longer she might continue to tour and race competitively.

Although going into the competition as a favorite, Shiffrin did not medal in any of the six events she competed in during the 2022 Winter Olympics. However, in January 2023, Shiffrin made history after winning her eighty-third World Cup race, which broke the record for most all-time World Cup race wins among female alpine skiers. She continued to rack up the wins over the following months but then took a six-week hiatus because of injuries. However, by March 2024, she had made a strong comeback, collecting her ninety-seventh World Cup victory, having bounced back from injuries she sustained in January in Italy.

Impact

Mikaela Shiffrin made history as the youngest slalom gold medalist with her victory at the 2014 Olympic Games. Following her gold medal in the giant slalom and silver medal in the alpine combined at the 2018 Olympic Games, she joined the elite group of American alpine skiers to have won Olympic medals in three different events. Her record eighty-third World Cup race win in 2023 further added to Shiffrin's career accolades. As of 2024, she was a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a four-time world champion in slalom, and a five-time Overall World Cup winner. Shiffrin was considered one of the best Alpine skiers ever. She was the first athlete to win in all the disciplines of the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, which is the most elite alpine skiing competition. Time named her one of its 100 Most Influential People in 2023; Shiffrin also won an ESPY Award for best athlete in women's sports that year.

Personal Life

Shiffrin lives in Colorado when she is not training or competing. She dated Mathieu Faivre, a French alpine skier, from 2017 to 2019. Shiffrin's mother has served as one of her coaches and a travel companion at times.

Bibliography

"American Skier Mikaela Shiffrin Wins Record 83rd World Cup Race, Breaking Tie with Former Teammate Lindsey Vonn." CBS News, 24 Jan. 2023, www.cbsnews.com/news/mikaela-shiffrin-wins-record-83rd-world-cup-race/. Accessed 27 Feb. 2023.

“Mikaela Shiffrin.” Team USA, usskiandsnowboard.org/athletes/mikaela-shiffrin. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.

Myer, John. “Eagle-Vail Teen Sensation Mikaela Shiffrin Rules in World Cup Slalom.” The Denver Post, 16 Mar. 2013, www.denverpost.com/2013/03/16/eagle-vail-teen-sensation-mikaela-shiffrin-rules-in-world-cup-slalom/. Accessed 1 May 2018.

Paumgarten, Nicholas. “Confidence Game.” The New Yorker, 27 Nov. 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/mikaela-shiffrin-the-best-slalom-skier-in-the-world. Accessed 1 May 2018.

Pennington, Bill. “At 22, Mikaela Shiffrin Flies to Skiing’s Pinnacle. And Aims to Move It Higher.” The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/sports/mikaela-shiffrin-world-cup-ski-racing.html. Accessed 1 May 2018.

Pennington, Bill. “It’s Crazy Mikaela Shiffrin Will Aim for 3 Skiing Golds. It’s Crazier She May Get Them.” The New York Times, 11 Feb. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/11/sports/olympics/mikaela-shiffrin-golds.html. Accessed 1 May 2018.

Pennington, Bill. “Mikaela Shiffrin, the Best on Skis, Gets Used to Putting a Sport on Her Shoulders.” The New York Times, 22 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/sports/skiing/mikaela-shiffrin.html. Accessed 7 Oct. 2020.‌

Pennington, Bill. “No Storybook Ending for Lindsey Vonn, but Mikaela Shiffrin Wins Silver in Combined.” The New York Times, 21 Feb. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/sports/olympics/alpine-combined-mikaela-shiffrin-lindsey-vonn.html. Accessed 1 May 2018.

Pinelli, Brian. "Mikaela Shiffrin Is Otherworldly, Exceeds All Expectations with Dominant Comeback Victory in Sweden." Team USA, 11 Mar. 2024, www.teamusa.com/news/2024/march/11/mikaela-shiffrin-is-otherworldly-exceeds-all-expectations-with-dominant-comeback-victory-in-sweden. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.

Svrluga, Barry. “American Mikaela Shiffrin Couldn’t Outski Her Own Expectations—or Ours.” The Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/american-mikaela-shiffrin-couldnt-outski-her-own-expectations--or-ours/2018/02/22/927846dc-17b2-11e8-8b08-027a6ccb38eb‗story.html. Accessed 1 May 2018.