BEIJING — Mikaela Shiffrin finished ninth in the Olympics’ Super-G, which was impressive considering open books are not very aerodynamic. Shiffrin followed her race with her usual kind of media availability. She treated it like a therapy session, except she should have charged us.
“I had a dream last night that was just repetitive the whole night long,” Shiffrin said. “And I kept kind of waking up from it, and then going back to sleep. And it just kept happening: that I skied out on the fifth gate. And it really felt pretty awful to have that dream again and again.”
She laughed. Yes, after skiing off the course after the five gates of both the giant slalom and slalom, Shiffrin dreamed she did it again, and then shared that with the world.
The Super-G was the reminder she needed: She is still who she always thought she was. It’s easy to get used to athletic greatness, and to view success and failure through podium finishes and medal counts, but let’s pause here to appreciate what Shiffrin just did.
She said, “our plan yesterday was to get on the Super-G skis, see how it felt and decide if it would even be safe to race today.” She then raced against a field of some of the best skiers in the world, in an event that is not her best. Some people can barely remember how to tie their shoes at the end of an emotionally tumultuous week. Shiffrin finished ninth in the world.
“I didn’t think there was a very big chance to come in and win or even medal in this race, with these women who have been skiing Super-G all season,” she said. “It felt really nice to ski that today. It was a little bit uncertain—or very uncertain. Coming back out and getting the chance to race again, was just the perfect thing to do, actually.”
This week Shiffrin has skied three races and lived two existences: The one the public sees, and the one playing out in her own mind. She felt the overwhelming level of love for people who empathized with her: “just the most incredible feeling to have so many people reaching out and sending support, and just showing so much kindness.” Still, she is a competitive skier. She did not come here to be supported. She did not come here to experience … well … let’s find a polite word here …
“I do consider it failure,” Shiffrin volunteered. “I mean, I think a lot of people do. It’s just tough to see that word in the headline of an article and it feels like clickbait to say, you know: ‘Crashes out!’ ‘Fails!’ ‘Disappoints the world!’ ‘Chokes’! All of it. They’re just harsh words … I failed twice to do the job that I am supposed to do. I can say that.
“That’s the honest truth.”
So is this: She needs to see it that way. Anything else would feel like a cop-out. That’s the emotional trap she has inadvertently set for herself. The only way to be the best in the world at a sport is to believe you are supposed to be the best in the world.
“It’s an enormous letdown when it doesn’t happen,” Shiffrin said. “And I can go back and say I won medals before in my career, and that’s wonderful. But it doesn’t take away any hurt or disappointment from these races. And I think it’s possible to feel both proud of a career and sad for the moment you’re in.
“It’s a little obsessive,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s healthy. I don’t know if anything we really do is healthy.”
Skiing down a mountain at 60 miles per hour would not be particularly healthy for most people. But it is what Shiffrin needed. She waited until late Thursday afternoon to commit to Friday morning’s race, and she said one reason was “knowing that the track itself is not something crazy challenging.” She was going to have to compete again at some point. This turned out to be the right day for it.
“I feel emotionally weary right now, just … there’s a definitely a sense of dullness,” she said. “And you can’t have that.”
Shiffrin has skied competitively for almost her entire life. Her boyfriend, Aleksander Kilde, is an Olympic skier. Her identity is very much tied up in being a skier. Imagine how jarring it was this week when she suddenly looked like she forgot how to ski.
“It’s a really big relief to be here now,” she said. “I wasn’t skiing safe or anything, but I also did get to the finish. That’s really nice for my heart to know that it’s not totally abandoning everything I thought I knew about the sport. There was nothing sad about today. It was really quite solid skiing.”
She said she plans to race in the downhill. She is not supposed to win that, either, but it was good to know she thinks she can handle the fastest Alpine race. We do not have to abandon everything we thought we knew about Mikaela Shiffrin.
