Mikaela Shiffrin knows that last season was incredibly successful — Olympic gold and silver medals, a repeat World Cup overall title and fifth slalom globe with a personal-best 12 wins on the circuit.
She also knows that most friends and family asked about something else — her fourth-place finish in the PyeongChang Olympic slalom.
“They say, what happened in the slalom?” she said in a preseason interview with Austrian TV. “And there’s not really one answer. And a lot of the answers I have will just sound like I’m complaining or that they’re excuses. So I don’t like to talk about it too much because I like to focus more on the incredible success that I did have in the giant slalom and the super combined as well, but for sure the slalom was a disappointing thing for me. To be so close to a medal, coming in fourth place, it’s kind of like a little burn.”
Shiffrin begins the post-Olympic season with the traditional opening giant slalom in Soelden, Austria, on Saturday.
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Four years ago, she began the PyeongChang Olympic cycle with her first win in a discipline other than slalom in Soelden (a tie with Anna Veith). She would end the quadrennial with two medals in South Korea in events other than slalom.
In between, Shiffrin suffered the first significant injury of her career, began racing speed events (even won a downhill) and spoke about nerves that caused her to throw up before races (including the PyeongChang slalom).
She began Skyping and texting a sports psychologist, who suggested writing the words “I am” on her lime-green gloves. Shiffrin had read the poem “Invictus.” I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
“I’m more excited for this season, going into Soelden, than I have been in the past,” she said last week. “The last couple of years, I felt a little bit like someone has a choke hold on my neck, and the closer we get to the race, the more I feel like they’re choking me. This year, I feel a lot more comfortable with my skiing or just kind of comfortable with this whole process.”
This season, Shiffrin can join the farewelling Lindsey Vonn as the only women to win three straight World Cup overall titles in the last 25 years.
She can pass childhood idol Marlies Schild of Austria for the World Cup slalom wins record — Shiffrin has 32 (plus three parallel slalom wins that don’t count for this stat); the retired Schild 35.
She is favored to tick off both boxes. But Shiffrin only speaks about the numbers when they’re brought up by reporters.
“To be honest, I don’t know how many slalom wins that I have now,” she told Austrian TV. “It’s something in the 30s, I guess, and I have a total of 40-something wins. I don’t really count, so I don’t really know where I am in terms of those records. For me, it’s the best way to think about it because if I start thinking about those records, it’s going to be too much pressure.”
The goals this season include the usuals. A priority on defending the slalom title. Striving for a first giant slalom season title. Dabbling in speed races as she bids for another overall globe. (Shiffrin did something out of character this offseason, spending vacation time in Martinique with a top GS rival, Frenchwoman Tessa Worley, while on a trip with her boyfriend, French racer Mathieu Faivre, and other members of that nation’s team.)
Shiffrin also voiced a new goal, long-term, that would put her in exclusive company.
“Some day I will be able to have wins in every discipline,” Shiffrin said (she has them all except super-G), “and hopefully I will be able to win in every event in one season.”
Not even Vonn has done the latter. Shiffrin would be the fourth after Petra Kronberger, Janica Kostelic and Tina Maze. Now that would really get the friends and family talking.
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