Mikaela Shiffrin makes coaching adjustment ahead of Beijing Games

VAIL — With simply three weeks till the Olympics start, Mikaela Shiffrin has dismissed longtime coach and coach Jeff Lackie, in response to Ski Racing Media.

Lackie informed Ski Racing Media on Monday that he was relieved of his duties on account of contracting COVID-19 after touring to his residence in Toronto. He had returned to Canada whereas Shiffrin was quarantining and recovering from the virus herself.

“I’m proud to say we developed an all-around skier who was extremely aggressive in all occasions,” Lackie described his now-former athlete to Ski Racing Media. “She nonetheless has much more to perform. I want her and the crew the most effective of luck and hope issues go properly in China.”

The transfer comes only a week after Shiffrin moved previous Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark for many profession World Cup victories in a single self-discipline together with her forty seventh slalom win on Jan. 11 in Schladming, Austria. Lackie primarily labored with Shiffrin on energy and conditioning and within the velocity disciplines throughout his six-year tenure.

“It’s necessary that Mikaela has a crew round her that’s going to have the ability to present what she wants, particularly within the lead-up to one thing as tense because the Olympic Video games,” Lackie mentioned. “So, the choice was made to interchange me, and I’m extremely happy with what I used to be in a position to accomplish with Mikaela over the previous six years.”

The transfer was confirmed by Jesse Hunt, the Alpine director for the U.S. ski crew.

“Given the continued COVID-19 challenges, and with Jeff being again in Canada for a number of weeks now, it’s been determined that he is not going to return to Crew Shiffrin main as much as Beijing,” Hunt informed Ski Racing Media. He additionally mentioned that Shiffrin will work intently with the U.S. girls’s velocity workers within the lead-up to the Video games and in Beijing.

“Mikaela has been crossing over into velocity and dealing with the ladies’s velocity coaches for numerous years now,” Hunt mentioned. “She is assured within the velocity workers and enjoys working with them.”

Coley Oliver, a coach with the U.S. girls’s Europa Cup program, will exchange Lackie.

“Coley will be part of and assist the crew the place he’s wanted,” Hunt added. Shiffrin’s workers additionally contains of Mike Day, her private head coach, and her mom, Eileen Shiffrin.

Shiffrin plans on racing all 5 particular person occasions on the Olympics for the primary time however didn’t compete in Zauchensee final week and also will sit out the downhill and super-G in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, this coming weekend to give attention to coaching. Her social media reveals her at the moment at Reiteralm Bergbahnen in Schladming, Austria.

Her subsequent World Cup would be the large slalom in Kronplatz, Italy, on Jan. 25. She is at the moment ranked No. 1 within the general World Cup standings and second in each the slalom and large slalom self-discipline standings.

rsederquist@vaildaily.com