Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily
The demand for Mikaela Shiffrin’s versatile lineup isn’t just reserved for the slopes, where she’s capable of winning World Cup downhills and slaloms on any occasion. Superstar Edwards is also getting used to answering a wide range of questions from the media.
At Thursday’s Atomic media day in Altenmarkt, Austria, the 28-year-old fielded predictable inquiries about her off-season reset and her goals for the new season after surpassing Ingemar Stenmark for the most career Alpine Skiing World Cup victories last March. She also relayed what she said to tennis star Iga Swiatek after the 22-year-old was dropped from the world rankings. As if that press conference medley wasn’t enough, she explained how her dancing hobby translates to success on the snow.
“It’s like an expression of your body,” she said of the latter topic. “Everyone has a style of skiing; I think everyone has a little dance style too. I tend to be pretty stiff with my arms when I’m skiing and when I’m dancing, it’s the same thing, so those are things that kind of translate to the way your body moves.
On September 16, Shiffrin and her boyfriend Aleksander Aamodt Kilde posted a spontaneously choreographed music video for “Gimme!” » by ABBA. Give me ! Give me !” made during a training camp in Chile while dressed in their respective American and Norwegian racing kits and Atomic ski boots. The Instagram post prompted a response from fellow medalist Olympic gold medalist Jessie Diggins, whose social media pages are full of similar impromptu dance sessions.
Did she expect it to go viral?
“Yes. That’s why we did it,” Shiffrin joked at the media day, with Kilde by his side. The 31-year-old, who won six World Cup downhill races en route to his second consecutive globe in this discipline, was asked about his first in-person meeting with Austrian legend Hermann Maier.
“I felt like a kid again,” he said. “The most fun was talking about different races – about Kitzbühel, Lake Louise and Beaver Creek.” Shiffrin said meeting Maier was “a complete fan moment,” for her, too.
He was then asked what it meant to be appointed to TIME’s “100 Most Influential People” list of 2023.
“That kind of recognition is actually pretty hard for me to comprehend or understand,” Shiffrin said, adding that her highlight was meeting people at the event itself.
“There are people in the world doing much bigger things than me. And for me, it’s just inspiring to see how they manage themselves, how they present themselves and how they fight for incredible things.
During an offseason that also saw her awarded the ESPY for best female athlete, Shiffrin came into contact with several celebrities, including Swiatek. Before the Laureus World Sports Awards 2023 (both were nominated for Sportswoman of the Year), the two discussed on Instagram how the rise to fame made it difficult for people to trust each other. On Thursday, Shiffrin was asked if she had since met Swiatek in person. Shiffrin said no, but that she texts him and would love to see the Polish star in a match at some point.
“I don’t know if she feels that way, but what I see is, I don’t know, modesty, but also a security in herself that you don’t often see in athletes so young who are also successful,” Shiffrin said of Swiatek.
“I didn’t know who I was – I still don’t – and somehow she seems to have certain things that come straight to her mind. The answers she has now, already in her career, I would have liked to have had them at that time in mine.
Swiatek was ranked World No. 1 for 75 weeks, but is currently No. 2.
“What I told him was, ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s going to come back,’” Shiffrin said of losing the No. 1 ranking. “It’s your mentality that’s unbeatable, so keep going.”
After winning 14 races and accumulating a career-high 2,206 World Cup points in 2023, Shiffrin was asked if it “was hard to stop after the season and start again with the basics” after all the records, figures and questions.
“I’m not sure. Maybe I haven’t stopped yet. Now that you ask, maybe I did poorly all summer,” she said. “I think that sometimes it’s nice to continue.”
Kilde then chimed in, explaining that for both athletes, getting together in familiar places with their families is the couple’s way of resetting. Shiffrin mentioned spending time at Kilde’s summer cabin in Norway; they also spent time at Edwards.
“There’s a reset and you take some distance from the sport, I just don’t really like to think about it,” Shiffrin added. “We did our job, and now we’re back and excited to race again.”
The 2023-24 World Cup season will begin on October 28-29 in Sölden, Austria. When asked if she had a specific goal after accomplishing what she did last season, Shiffrin said, “Actually, no. »
“I would like to maybe, ideally, improve my downhill performance a little more, but that doesn’t really mean winning. It’s just about improving skills that I think are fundamental, but can improve,” she continued.
“And also super-G. And then with slalom and GS, the coolest thing for me last season was that I felt a consistency with my skiing and my mentality that I had never really felt before. So it was just exciting to go into every race being really excited to actually be able to race. So I hope that one of our big goals will be to try to maintain that mentality.
This story comes from VailDaily.com.
