Mikaela Shiffrin
Mikaela Shiffrin
Mikaela Pauline Shiffrinis an American World Cup alpine ski racer with the U.S. Ski Team, specializing in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom. She is the reigning Olympic, World Cup, and world champion in slalom. Shiffrin is the youngest slalom champion in Olympic alpine skiing history, at 18 years and 345 days...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSkier
Date of Birth13 March 1995
CityVail, CO
CountryUnited States of America
You can create your own miracle, but you do it by never looking past all the little steps along the way.
It's like a puzzle or a painting or music. When I ski, it's like a song. I can hear the rhythm in my head, and when I start to ski that rhythm and I start to really link my turns together, all of a sudden there's so much flow and power that I just can't help but feel amazing. That's where the joy comes from.
I like it when hard work pays off.
I haven't had to make a decision between 'my brand' and money. Everybody seems to get what I'm going for: the healthy lifestyle, staying active, being young and youthful.
If I hadn't come East as a kid, I might still be a World Cup racer today, but I wouldn't be the same World Cup racer.
I have never limited myself by focusing much on being a 'normal' teenager.
If you strive toward the perfect run, accepting that you will always come up short of that is very intriguing. It makes me think about how in life in general, we always want to strive toward perfection, but sometimes perfection would be the worst thing.
I just - I fell in love with the sport when I started to ski gates. Once I was allowed to start training gates around 6 years old, then I really fell in love with it.
I just have tried to adapt to the constant changes that happen all the time in my schedule and try and find any sort of mini-predictability and balance within my very unpredictable life.
In the end, I want to be an inspiration to somebody.
I don't really have time or interest in doing a lot of the crazy things that some of my teenage peers do, mostly because I have such a hectic life that I don't need to add to that chaos by creating my own teenage drama like a lot of teenagers do.
The harsh cold and windburn from hours of skiing does a lot of damage to my skin, so I try to keep my skin as moisturized as possible.
You can't ever make the perfect run, but you can make the best run, and then you clock the fastest time, and that's a win.