Mikaela Shiffrin exclusive: "Records are special, but I don’t need them"
The two-time Olympic champion shares what her real goals are as she enters a new phase of her competitive career: “For me, over these next few years, it's like trying to find a way to find more enjoyment in life,” the American said in this exclusive interview ahead of the 2022/23 FIS Alpine World Cup season.
Alpine Skiing
The name Mikaela Shiffrin has been associated with the word ‘record’ for most of her career.
At Sochi 2014, the alpine skiing star became the youngest women’s slalom champion in Olympic history.
In 2018, at not even 23 years old, the American had already won a race in all six individual ski disciplines (and she is still the only athlete – male or female - to have done so).
Earlier this year, she also became the skier with most victories in a single World Cup event (47 in slalom ahead of the 2022/23 season).
With 74 race wins to her name in the top-tier alpine circuit, Shiffrin’s next milestone to reach will be Lindsey Vonn’s all-time record for most World Cup victories (82) secured by a female skier, followed by Ingemar Stenmark’s overall mark (86).
“Every record is special. There's nothing wrong with it,” the two-time Olympic champion admitted during the Atomic Media day held on the eve of her season debut.
“It's a way to analyse who, you know, has done something great in sport. And I get that. It's just…it's not the thing that I'm shooting for in order to retire.”
Records are important, but not an obsession for the Vail-born tech specialist:
“I won't say, ‘No, I don't want that record’ because of course, it's a special thing. And that means something that's a legacy, that's important. And it's not that I don't want to. It's just that I don't need it.
“I don't need that to feel like I accomplished everything in the sport. I just want to keep improving. And hopefully, over the next few years, if I'm improving, it means I'm still able to win races. And then we'll see the record. And if it does happen, if it happens, then when it happens, I think it'll probably feel special, for sure. That'll be amazing, but it's not any guarantee, and it's definitely not something that I need.”
Shiffrin: My next career goals
At 27, the four-time overall globe winner has entered a second – and final - phase of her competitive ski career and she feels her priorities have changed.
“I think more of my goals have to do with the human side of things,” she said.
“For me, over these next few years, it's like trying to find a way to find more enjoyment in life.”
Finding a new inner balance is what the six-time world champion has been fighting for since the loss of her father Jeff over two years ago.
“After experiencing such a big tragedy and loss in my family, it's like moving forward from that. But you never really heal or recover or move on. You just learn to be alive with that. And that's kind of the process I'm going through as a human and trying to share that as I go through it, because I hope that it can help impact other people.”
Titles, records, and achievements on the slopes are not currently at the forefront of her mind.
“I don't have one goal from results that I want to achieve in order to feel like I can retire. If I had a list of goals that I wanted to achieve before I finished skiing, to be honest, I got them already. If I had that (list), and I didn't even have that.”
Retirement is not something the slalom queen thinks she'll contemplate anytime soon.
“Skiing wise I'm going to do it until I feel like I don't have the inspiration to keep putting in the amount of work that it takes. Or I feel like I've reached my limit, I can't actually improve anymore. But I still feel like I can get better, I can ski faster, I can improve still. So that's kind of where my motivation lies to keep staying in the sport and keep racing. And there's still so much to do, or at least to try to do, so much more potential still.”
READ MORE: Shiffrin: I have won in my career and I'm going to win again
Shiffrin: Protecting my mental health
During the last few months, the American hasn’t been afraid to share her moments of weakness, and she candidly admitted her ‘failures’ at the last Winter Olympics, where she failed to finish three of the six events she entered and came away with no medals.
At the same time, the Team USA star didn’t refrain from blasting trolls and haters on social media, and now confesses how she’s learning to deal with this external negativity.
“I don't think the goal is to not be nervous, because you get nervous because you care about something and the goal is to care. What we don't want is to be so distraught at any point in time that you stop caring about things because that's a true mental health problem,” Shiffrin said.
“We want to care. We're designed to care and that's important. So I'm not afraid to be nervous anymore. It's just trying to put things in perspective. And it's also trying to basically, for me, set my own opinion above what I see on social media when people comment and say whatever they want about me, because anybody can type something in and press send and then it's there. It's a comment, I can read it, and sometimes it can bother me. Sometimes I see it and I say, ‘You know what? Everyone can have their opinion and I can let this ruin my day or I can just kind of move on with my life.’
“I've just slowly started to understand that that's the best way to handle it. And of course, in these moments when it's a high stress or most difficult, that's the hardest thing to do, like let go of what people say when you're tired, when you're, yeah, when you feel pressure, then those comments carry more weight. But overall, I think I've gotten better about like listening to myself and what I think is important more than anyone else.”
READ MORE: How I related to the pressure felt by Simone Biles in Tokyo
Shiffrin: Inspired by F1 experience
During the off-season the skiing superstar had time to recharge the batteries ahead of a busy and intense season leading up to the World Championships in Courchevel-Meribel, France, in February 2023.
Spending time with her loved ones at the family home in Edwards, Colorado, was key for her: “Sleeping in my own bed and feeling like I could sit still for a minute, that was the most recharging that I get,” she admitted.
“To be able to stay at home before the season starts, that's a really important piece to just feel like I have some connection with home because now I'm probably going to be traveling until March.”
During the summer, Shiffrin travelled to Europe with her boyfriend Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and they had the chance to visit the paddock at F1 motor racing’s British Grand Prix in Silverstone:
“One thing that's incredible about Formula One is how much ability they have to analyse everything, like they have sensors on every single part of the car and the athlete and monitoring all of these different forces. And it gives them such exact strategies,” she said.
The 27-year-old documented her experience by posting pictures on social media as she spent time with Haas Team principal Guenther Steiner and with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, the former team principal of Ferrari.
“All these things are kind of mind boggling, because with ski racing, we have to pay attention to details, but we don't have the ability or the technology yet to kind of control all of these factors, you know, with your skis and your boots and your bindings and maybe your goggle lenses,” she continued.
Tech wise, she believes alpine skiing has still a long way to go:
“You watch your video and you see your time and that's about it! So there are some technological advancements going on in skiing, some like GPS trackers when we're training help show us the forces or help show when maybe you have increased frictions, your turn slows down, but in the long run, it's so far away from all of those pieces that make Formula One so tech or, I don't know, technically like analysed.”
Having said that, Shiffrin also believes you can make some comparisons with her sport:
“At the end of the day, the sport itself is this kind of high performance, high intensity, and high focus. And I guess you can really draw that parallel to any sport. It's always like the athletes have to bring in a full 100 percent effort and for them they have to do it over a two hour period straight, while for us is like 60 seconds. So it's kind of different levels of intensity for different periods of time, but you can see that focus and there's a huge parallel there.”