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MIKAELA SHIFFRIN
MIKAELA’S MOTIVATION: THE GREATEST RACER OF ALL TIME STAYS ON TRACK
It was nearing midnight and six giant bags of luggage still needed packing. Earlier in the day—on a sunlit Saturday last March—American ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin had beat Ingemar Stenmark’s 86-win record for the most World Cup victories, racing slalom in Stenmark’s home country of Sweden. But there was little time to stop and reflect. For Shiffrin, the record breaker was a race like countless others. That night she stuffed gear into duffles, while her brother, Taylor, and his wife, Kristi, who were jet-lagged after a surprise visit from the U.S., fell asleep on Shiffrin’s bed.
It had been one of her best slalom performances ever, finishing nine-tenths of a second ahead of runner up Wendy Holdener, from Switzerland. As soon as she crossed the finish line, Shiffrin spent the entire afternoon in one media interview after another. It’s true Lindsey Vonn had put the U.S. back on the global ski map in the 2010s, but a 27-year-old from Colorado beating the World Cup win record felt like something else entirely. Stenmark wasn’t there, though he was watching the race on TV. “Four years ago, I predicted Mikaela would win 100 races and you can tell I was right,” Stenmark later told journalists. “She deserves all my admiration.”…