Mikaela Shiffrin

Mikaela Shiffrin is taking the ski world by storm. With three Olympic medals (two gold), seven World Championship titles, 88 World Cup victories (at time of writing), 138 combined podiums, medals in four of the five major ski disciplines (all except downhill), and so many crystal globes (six!), she probably doesn’t even know what to do with them anymore, Mikaela is smashing records (including Ingemar Stenmark’s and Lindsey Vonn’s) right and left. She’s already a living legend, and she’s still racing.

Practically born with skis on her feet in Vail, Colorado — one of America’s ski meccas — Mikaela Shiffrin is nothing short of a winner. At five years old she began competitive skiing and she hasn’t stopped since. Her helmet proudly displays her iron will and slogan: ABFTTB — Always Be Faster Than The Boys! She left home as a teen to attend Burke Mountain Academy High School in Vermont, on the other side of the country; a world-class ski racing boarding school that fosters champions, who also double as visionaries and entrepreneurs.

They say winning has nothing to do with age and Mikaela is real-life proof: she won the United States slalom championships when she was only 16 years old. Two years later, in the Sotchi Olympics, she became the youngest athlete in history to win an Olympic gold medal in her discipline. Her career took off from there as she continued to smash both expectations and records. While every one of Mikaela’s early career wins was in slalom, she’s truly a broad-spectrum skier who excels in almost every discipline. In 2019, she made history with her first super-G win at Lake Louise, becoming the first athlete in FIS Ski World Cup history to win in all six disciplines. She also went on to set a new record number of victories for a single season (17!) amongst both men and women. She’s a true global phenomenon; superhuman even, according to some.

Her signature is quicky springing to action and totally controlled descents. She’s got the ferocious will of a locomotive and a consistently positive attitude. She also has a well-known habit of taking naps… and busting out some dance moves when she places first on the clock. Her eternal goal is always the same: to be the best skier in the world. With Beijing on her radar for the 2022 Olympics, she was deemed the favourite in three of the six disciplines she was racing in. It proved to be a heavy burden, and she did not finish in her slalom races. Despite not winning a medal, she still came out positive (with nothing she still needs to prove), saying “the important thing is not so much to win as to inspire the next generation.” A mantra we know she will continue to live by going into this winter season.

fis-ski.com