Mommy Shiffrin talks about her daughter’s transformation

Mathias Germannreporter sports

Child prodigy, superstar, best of all time. Mikaela Shiffrin (27) has dominated the Ski World Cup for a decade. Not consistently, of course not. But overall in a way you wouldn’t have thought possible. “I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. The last three years in particular have been really difficult,” she says. Shiffrin speaks less about the Olympic disaster in Beijing 2022 when she remained without a medal in five races. No, it was the loss of her grandmother Pauline (1921-2019) and especially her father Jeff (1955-2020) that bothered her.

But now Shiffrin is back. She is almost unbeatable on the slopes – most recently she won four times in a row in three different disciplines (Super-G, giant slalom, slalom). And even without skis on her feet, she seems to be enjoying life. At Semmering (Austria) she seemed tidy and yet relaxed, calm and yet euphoric – she was almost happier about the second place in the slalom of her compatriot Paula Moltzan (28) than about her 80th World Cup victory.