Cover Athletes Women of Team USA

• The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing is sort of upon us.
• Sports activities Illustrated has launched its iconic Olympics concern forward of the video games.
• All 4 cowl athletes are ladies and high opponents for Workforce USA.

The Beijing Olympics are practically upon us.

Sports activities Illustrated has launched its iconic Olympics concern spotlighting the opponents representing Workforce USA forward of this yr’s winter video games.

And in a historic transfer, all 4 athletes chosen for the duvet are ladies.

Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, velocity skater Erin Jackson, cross nation skier Jessie Diggins, and hockey participant Abby Roque are the faces of the February version of Sports activities Illustrated. And along with incomes pictures on the entrance of the journal, all 4 medal contenders have been featured in elaborate cowl tales that contextualize their journeys to Beijing.

Shiffrin has lengthy been a ski racing phenom. The Vail, Colorado, native grew to become the youngest alpine snowboarding slalom champion in Olympics historical past when she won gold in Sochi eight years ago, only a few weeks shy of turning 19.

Now 26, Shiffrin is shouldering a burden few moreover Simone Biles or Shaun White might ever fathom; all eyes are on her as soon as each 4 years, and something wanting perfection is deemed a letdown. For instance, on the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, Shiffrin pulled out of two occasions and underperformed in one other after weather-induced scheduling modifications and media obligations adopted her big slalom gold-medal win.

And although she returned to the mountain to earn her a silver medal within the mixed occasion — a gritty, resilient efficiency that, in hindsight, appears much like Biles’ bronze-medal comeback in Tokyo final summer season — her journey to South Korea was extensively thought of a bust.

“The frustration from these failures feels extremely actual,” Shiffrin advised SI’s Greg Bishop. “Even now.”

However within the wake of her father’s premature dying, a again harm that has restricted her coaching, and the crushing expectations ascribed to her a few years in the past, Shiffrin has managed to shift her perspective heading into her third Olympic Video games. Bishop particulars that transformation with gorgeous element in Shiffrin’s cover story.

Erin Jackson had a completely totally different trajectory in her sport than Shiffrin’s. The 29-year-old started severely competing in velocity skating far later than most of her friends.

Jackson punched her ticket to the 2018 video games for Workforce USA regardless of having solely 4 months of coaching on ice forward of qualifiers. Since then, she’s blossomed into the world’s top-ranked velocity skater within the 500-meter occasion, successful 4 of the eight most up-to-date World Cups within the race forward of qualifiers for this winter’s games.

In her cowl story, Sports activities Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein takes readers via Jackson’s remarkable journey to Beijing.

Subsequent up is Jessie Diggins, the cross nation skier who grew to become Workforce USA’s first-ever girl to earn a gold medal in her sport with a come-from-behind victory in Pyeongchang 4 years in the past. Since then, the 30-year-old has develop into a dominant drive on the worldwide circuit.

And final yr, she earned “essentially the most prestigious particular person title of her profession, changing into the primary American to win the multistage Tour de Ski,” as Sports activities Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg writes in her cowl story. Two months later, she grew to become the primary girl from the US to seize the general FIS Cross-Nation Ski World Cup title.

She’s a favourite to win gold in Beijing, however Diggins is much less involved with outcomes than she is with the hassle that goes into crossing the end line. Rosenberg captures the Minnesotan’s dedication to the method — and the ache that comes with it — in Diggins’ cover story.

Workforce USA hockey’s Abby Roque rounds out the slate of canopy athletes. The 24-year-old middle will make her Olympics debut in China because the People look to defend their gold medal with out a number of of the veterans pivotal to the crew’s successful efforts in Pyeongchang.

Roque’s inclusion on the 23-player roster has added significance; she’s one among a small group of Indigenous athletes who’ve been tapped to characterize america on sports activities’ greatest stage. The Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan native grew up as a member of the Wahnapitae First Nation tribe.

When she left her residence to play hockey on the College of Wisconsin, she was shocked to search out how little most of her friends knew about Native American tradition. Now that she has such a outstanding platform, she’s centered on “doing what I can to make it seen to individuals, so that they know you can also make it this far” as a competitor from an under-represented group.

She is the lone nonwhite participant heading to Beijing with Workforce USA’s ladies’s hockey crew, in line with Sports activities Illustrated.

“I am fortunate to have gotten all the way in which right here,” Roque told SI’s Alex Prewitt for her cover story. “So I must proceed to push hockey to develop into extra numerous.”

Although all 4 cowl tales and pictures dropped digitally on Tuesday, readers can decide up a duplicate of Shiffrin’s, Jackson’s, Diggins’, and Roque’s Sports activities Illustrated points from newsstands starting Thursday. And sports activities followers can tune in on NBC to look at all 4 stars in motion on the 2022 Olympics from February 4 to the twentieth.