Mikaela Shiffrin has already ruled out competing in the downhill at the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Another event may be on the way out, too.
The two-time Olympic champion remains on the fence about competing in the super-G, only because of a lack of training time. She may focus on slalom and giant slalom for the Feb. 6-22 games.
“I adore super-G,” Shiffrin said in a video conference call with reporters on Wednesday from Sölden, Austria, where she’s getting ready to begin the season with a giant slalom race this weekend. “So I don’t want to let it go entirely, but it also means that I’ve got to get quite a bit more super-G training in the next weeks, which is hard to balance.”
Shiffrin won a bronze medal in super-G at the 2021 world championships held in Cortina d’Ampezzo — where women’s skiing will be contested at the Olympics. She also won a World Cup super-G in Cortina in 2019.
Shiffrin is going to use a World Cup super-G race in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in mid-December as a chance to see where she stands in the event. She’s at peace with the decision. Especially knowing how deep the U.S. women’s team is in the event.
“I’m feeling skeptical that I’m going to be able to expect to balance it all,” said Shiffrin, who has won a record 101 World Cup races. “I want to give it a go. I haven’t let go of that dream, but I’ve been to Games where I skied six events. I skied all of the events and it was a wonderful experience — wouldn’t do it again.
“It was exhausting for multiple years after the fact.”
These days, she’s prioritizing quality over quantity.
At the 2022 Beijing Games, she competed in six events and didn’t finish better than fourth — and that was in the team event. Shiffrin didn’t make it to the finish in her three best events in Beijing: slalom, giant slalom and combined. But she won the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Games and the giant slalom four years later in South Korea.
“I would expect to be racing three events. I think that’s pretty safe to say,” Shiffrin said, referring to slalom, giant slalom, and the new team combined — which she won with Breezy Johnson at last season’s worlds.
Shiffrin is also still recovering her ranking status following a crash at her home race in Killington, Vermont, last November, when something punctured her side and caused severe damage to her oblique muscles.
Asked to describe her Olympic history, she said: “I feel my Olympic history and I feel — aged.”
She broke into laughter.
“Wiser, but also the more I know, the more I feel like I know nothing,” said the 30-year-old Shiffrin, who made her Olympic debut at 18. “So open-minded as well, if nothing else, my Olympic history has told me to go into it with an open mind and to keep my circle tight with the people that I trust and care about, and to be on the same page with my team and the people who will be around me the most.
“I feel like we’re going into the season in a really good place,” she added. “I feel optimistic about that, but I’m not going to lie — the Olympics have been wonderful to me, and they’ve than like a mosquito, as well. The attitude I would like to bring is that the Olympics are not happening to me, but I’m happening to them.”
