Mikaela Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was born in Colorado and built her custom-built home. She says the exact same thing every time she skis in Vermont, where she was educated at the Burke Mountain Academy in Northeast Kingdom.
“This is a home crowd. This is a race. It’s that home feeling.”
Shiffrin was born in Green Mountain State, and he began his skiing career as a child. He then trained as a teenager and returned to the slopes to win every Killington World Cup race.
When asked by the media about her earliest Vermont memory, she said that “I remember the waffles that were absolutely divine.” “Shows me where my head is most often.”
Shiffrin, however, is thinking about skiiing as well as being the sport’s top overall.
In a recent interview, she stated that “I can definitely get stuck in an ‘I must win, I’m supposed to win. Everyone expects me to lose’ mentality.” It can feel very lonely and even crippling at times.
Two years of heartache in the past have not helped.
Shiffrin was awarded gold at the 2014 Olympics, in Sochi, Russia. She also won silver at the 2018 PyeongChang games, South Korea. Her 65-year old father, who died in an unexpected manner in February 2020, was followed by the Covid-19 pandemic of March and a back injury in October. The Killington World Cup was cancelled in November.
Sports Illustrated summed up Shiffrin’s 2020 as a “grieve-and-train-and-ski-and-rehab, try-to-make-sense-of-what-no-longer-does year.”
Shiffrin was back in Vermont three months ago to return to the Killington World Cup. After a foot of snow fell on Friday’s training run and Saturday’s giant slaloms, won the Sunday slalom.
Dan Hicks, NBC’s commentator on the live coverage, asked a national audience about Killington. It is a magical place, and it is so special for Mikaela Shifrin.
The skier who was crowned “Queen Killington” gave a bittersweet response.
She said, “I have so many really great memories of Killington with family, with my father,”
The Vermont event was a last chance for Shiffrin to feel at home in Olympic years before she is swept up in a flood of media hype and public expectations.
The winter of 2012 brought an unexpected twist.
The coronavirus was detected in the skier, who had been vaccinated and boosted. She was quarantined for more then a week and told not to exercise or go outside.
Six weeks later, Shiffrin is headlined as “World Beaters” by three of his U.S. team-mates (including Jessie Diggins , a fellow Vermont-trained gold Medalist).
“Here’s what about Mikaela Shifrin in 2022,” The Washington Post squeezed the following sentence into it: “She’s the 26-year old American face of games, the athlete NBC tabbed for ski race with dinosaurs and cross-promoting a new Jurassic Park’ film, the personality most likely t appear on the NBC’s ‘Today’ program, the most famous and well-known of the 223 athletes that make up Team USA.”
It’s literally and figuratively half the world away from those childhood waffles.
Shiffrin stated that she receives a lot of messages and mail from young skiers who come to Killington to see me race during her recent Vermont visit. “Hearing their passion for the sport, and how they want it to succeed, I was like, ‘I am you, I understand, I get it. I relate.’ But it doesn’t. I see myself in the exact same place I was 10 years ago and 15 years ago.
But she isn’t.
“Every race is a full on battle now. My fastest skiing would be in contention with the best in the world. But that is only what we will find out on race day.
Shiffrin is being mentioned by media outlets as far as the FiveThirtyEight political prognosticator . She could soon surpass the likes the late Rutland-born Andrea Mead Lawrence who still holds the American record of securing two alpine medals at the Olympics in 1952.
Shiffrin is not thinking about history, however.
“My main goal for this season is to let go of the self-pity that comes with the expectation that I will win because I have won it before. You can win no matter what you have done in the past. But you must win now. “I’m capable of really fast skiing. But I have to do it.”
She is now able to concentrate on what she’s doing.
“I ski at my best when I can focus on what I am doing and not be distracted by the world around me. It is not about blocking out all noise, but seeing my way through it. It’s important to just take each day one at a time and keep a grateful attitude.
Shiffrin plans to compete in all five disciplines of skiing: giant slalom (super-G), slalom and super-G), with more information available at NBCOlympics.com.
She said, “Given all that has happened with the pandemic as well as the challenges we’ve all encountered, I’m trying just to keep in mind that it’s lucky that we’re doing this.” “Letting go all preconceived notions about what it should be, just because it has been, is going to be my best chance to bring out my best skiing and see what’s possible now.”
