Even over Zoom, with a shaky web connection, Mikaela Shiffrin—the winningest alpine skier of all time, male or feminine—is effervescent.
She’s in Austria, I’m in New York, and we’re speaking about her stellar season constructing as much as the Milano Cortina Winter Video games, the place she shall be competing in three occasions. Earlier than the Olympics’ opening ceremonies, her profession complete wins had reached 108, together with her most up-to-date arriving simply two weeks prior, within the Czech Republic. Her closest rival? The retired Swede Ingemar Stenmark, with 86.
The Colorado native, now 30, participated in her first Video games in 2014. These had been held in Sochi, Russia, and there, at simply 18, she received gold within the slalom occasion. (She’d acquire extra {hardware} from Pyeongchang, within the large slalom race, in 2018.) All of that is to say: At Milano Cortina, Shiffrin has nothing to show statistically, solely extra to provide again to a sport that has already given her a lot. As she’ll say in our dialog: “I don’t know that I’ve ever been impressed to maintain snowboarding based mostly off of a race. I’m impressed by the work we put into it.”
Under, Shiffrin describes her headspace going into Milano Cortina, her rebound from a brutal puncture damage sustained in Vermont in 2024, and her dream podcast visitor.
Vogue: Hey, Mikaela! Thanks for making the time to talk with us. We all know you’re in peak coaching mode. The place are you proper now?
Mikaela Shiffrin: My pleasure! I’m in Austria, in a city known as Reiteralm.
When did you get to Europe?
I’ve been right here for the reason that starting of December and I’ll be right here till March! I used to be additionally right here from the top of September by means of mid-November, after which we had a brief stint within the US for some races at Copper Mountain [Colorado]. Then we went to Canada after which we got here again to Europe. However normally, our season is mainly October till March, racing each weekend, and most of the races are in Europe.
Milano Cortina shall be your fourth Olympic Video games. Your first, at age 18, was 12 years in the past. What would you say is totally different now for you mentally? And what feels the identical?
That’s loopy, really, to assume that it’s been 12 years. I imply, I do know it’s been that lengthy, however you don’t hear it out loud fairly often! My first Olympics was a really eye-opening expertise. There was a lot that I simply didn’t know. And you may’t be instructed it, you possibly can’t find out about it from a ebook. You simply must go and compete and expertise it. In Sochi, the US ski and snowboard crew bid on a resort forward of time for all of us to remain in. So we had our personal little cocoon, which was big, as a result of on day one, norovirus hit the athlete village and all people received sick.
I really feel like that occurs typically with the villages…
Actually, each Olympics expertise has been totally different. Beijing through the COVID period was one thing totally different completely. With Milano Cortina, I assume it’s not a lot about what to anticipate, but it surely’s extra like… the way to not set expectations. The one factor that I’ve realized, each single time, is that the Olympics are by no means going to be what you assume they’re going to be.
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