Ski star Mikaela Shiffrin has "ABFTTB" on her helmet - secret revealed
Created: 01/14/2022 13:18
By: Andreas Knobloch
Mikaela Shiffrin has ABFTTB on his helmet.
© Picture collage Imago/dpa Picture Alliance
Mikaela Shiffrin is the ski star for women.
She rides with an abbreviation on her helmet - but what does "ABFTTB" actually stand for?
We clarify.
Article of September 6, 2021
: Saas-Fee - Saas-Fee in Switzerland is the Mecca of alpine skiers when preparing for the winter sports season*.
Whether German or American, many are preparing with the Confederates.
The impressions spread by the associations and athletes on social media are breathtaking.
Conditions seem to be good, most of the time anyway.
Mikaela Shiffrin*, for example, also has a lot of fun in Switzerland.
Everyone seems to enjoy training in the Alps, with the possible exception of German DSV athlete Manu Schmid, who fell badly there and for whom the season was over before it even started.
Ski star Mikaela Shiffrin has ABFTTB on his helmet - but why?
Shiffrin has won pretty much everything there is to win in her career.
Two Olympic gold medals, six World Cup victories, three times the overall World Cup and she is the record winner after individual slalom victories.
What drives such a successful athlete to never let up?
The ambition and discipline perhaps stems in small measure from a childhood memory of a skiing legend and the abbreviation they wear on their helmets: "ABFTTB".
(See the seventh photo of her Instagram post - swipe or press the arrow).
Ski star Mikaela Shiffrin has ABFTTB by Heidi Voelker - and still wears it today
But what does that mean? This mystery was solved years ago in
Sports Illustrated
, but not everyone caught on. The three-time Olympic participant Heidi Voelker wrote the then six-year-old Shiffrin an autograph with just that abbreviation. And it also translates: "Always be faster than the boys".
As a teenager, she wrote the abbreviation on her skis to motivate her, and it's now professionally printed on the back of the 26-year-old's helmet.
When the American performs at its best, it looks at least as if she could easily compete in the men's field.
She could test that with her boyfriend - the Norwegian ski pro Aleksandar Aamodt Kilde.
(ank)
*Merkur..de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
