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Mikaela Shiffrin completed second and fifth in World Cup slaloms this weekend in Levi, Finland, scored 125 factors and sits third within the season standings with three of 34 scheduled occasions — not together with world championships in Cortina, Italy — concluded.
That’s a really journalism-school lead on Shiffrin’s 2020-21 season debut final weekend.
Since we’re actually solely one-and-a-half weekends into the marketing campaign, we will’t make any conclusions besides that it seems Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova has come to play this yr, successful each slaloms in Levi and having completed third within the large slalom in Solden, Austria, an occasion Shiffrin formally skipped due to a nasty again.
The query, nonetheless, stays, “What does Mikaela Shiffrin need out of this yr?” And that colours how we interpret her success.
How is she approaching 2020-21? Having suffered an enormous loss along with her father, is successful the World Cup championship, a title she held for 3 straight years from 2017-19, a objective? Is recapturing the slalom title, one thing she’s completed six out of the final eight seasons, an goal? Are self-discipline titles even on the radar? (She gained the super-G and GS along with slalom in 2018-19.)
Is she ramping up towards the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Cortina in February? (We’re most likely getting hotter right here.)
Shiffrin has by no means been public in her goal-setting. That will account for all of the preseason tales you didn’t see about her speaking about undertaking x, y and z. Actually, she actually has been adamant in her profession about not giving a hoot about objectives for which others care.
Keep in mind how she just about blew off Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller after successful the 2019 worlds super-G in Are, Sweden? Both Vonn and Miller thought Shiffrin should go for five golds at worlds. Shiffrin mentioned, “No thanks,” and choppered out of Are, leaving the championships for every week till the tech races rolled across the following week.
Although she has 66, Shiffrin doesn’t care in regards to the World Cup wins document of 86, held by Ingemar Stenmark or that Vonn is second on . the listing with 82 and Marcel Hirscher is third with 67.
When she wins her subsequent race she’s going to tie Hirscher. Win No. 2 will put Shiffrin third on the all-time listing. She. Does. Not. Care, particularly compared to say, Vonn, who would doubtless come out of retirement and commerce a number of important organs within the quest to go Stenmark. (We love Vonn equally, however we simply acknowledge that she and Shiffrin are completely different folks.)
Have a look at Shiffrin’s profession. She’s blissful to win races and globes, however she doesn’t get super-worked up about them. The closest we’ve gotten to a severe emotional second was when she clinched her first GS title again on the World Cup finals in March 2019.
Sure, the Olympics and worlds clearly maintain a particular place in her coronary heart, as evidenced by her document in these occasions — two Olympic golds (2014 slalom and 2018 GS) and 5 victories at championships (4 in slalom; one in super-G).
However in the event you take heed to her discuss — and that’s my life from October to March — it’s all about snowboarding properly. Shiffrin is a course of, not a outcomes, athlete.
“It’s in regards to the course of. It’s about enchancment. It’s not about successful,” Jeff Shiffrin informed The Denver Put up throughout the 2014 Olympics. “While you win, take pleasure in it, be enthusiastic about it. Nothing modifications. It doesn’t imply you don’t get excited as hell when it occurs. It simply makes it all of the extra significant that, yep, it’s in regards to the course of. It’s about sticking with, ‘I’ve to be higher tomorrow than right now, if in any respect doable.’ The coaching is the work, the racing is simply icing on the cake.”
If she skis to her requirements, Shiffrin is blissful, whatever the end. Sure, it’s a little bit of a semantic dodge, however it’s the essence of Shiffrin.
That has labored for her as a result of Shiffrin is such a expertise that if she takes care of her personal store issues are most likely going to prove high-quality as they did when she was arising by the ranks as the newest and best tech skier throughout the center of the final decade. And it was an ideal for the 2018-19 season, when she gained 17 World Cups and 19 occasions, together with worlds.
And it was the fitting method final yr, when not all the pieces was breaking her was like 2018-19, even earlier than her father’s passing.
It’s arduous to see Shiffrin altering that focus for 2020-21.
Nevertheless, this method might make it arduous for us to measure her yr compared to different campaigns as a result of the wins might or might not come.
Shiffrin will win some races this season, however will she ever match the 2018-19? Not going. No disrespect to Mikaela, however a whole lot of issues needed to come collectively for 19 wins, together with worlds, and the chances of the cosmos coming collectively like that once more are lengthy.
There are going to be days have been Shiffrin skis properly and Vlhova is simply higher. That was Levi final weekend. Enjoyable trivia from the U.S. Ski Group: Shiffrin and Vlhova have gained the final 28 World Cup slaloms, relationship again to 2017. (Sweden’s Frida Hansdotter, now retired, was the final lady not named Shiffrin or Vlhova to win a World Cup slalom — Flachau, Austria, Jan. 10, 2017.)
There are going to be days when she doesn’t ski properly, simply because she’s truly human. And there are going to be days that Shiffrin is bodily current at a race, but not there mentally or emotionally, as a result of, once more, she’s a human who’s mourning.
Sure, we’ll watch the standings — be they the general or the self-discipline rankings — however the higher m.o. could be to take heed to how she’s speaking.
Shiffrin sounded considerate, blissful and humorous, so name it a very good weekend.
On to the parallel GS in Lech-Zurs, Austria.
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