Historic record: Vonn & Co. bow to Super Shiffrin – her friend prevented her resignation
Created: 01/10/2023 07:25
Mikaela Shiffrin breaks Lindsey Vonn's record in Slovenia.
The alpine skiing celebrities are full of praise for the only 27-year-old competitor.
Krajnska Gora - When Mikaela Shiffrin made her first attempt on skis when she was four, she landed headfirst in deep snow.
"I thought I was trapped.
I can't get out of here," the American recently revealed.
Luckily, her father Jeff pulled her up by the feet.
23 years later, at the age of only 27, Shiffrin broke compatriot Lindsey Vonn's record (82) – ahead of her is only Ingemar Stenmark (86).
Still, because the great Swede already said at the 2019 World Championships in Are: "Mikaela will win more than 100 races - and that doesn't bother me at all."
Shiffrin breaks Vonn's alpine skiing record - newfound strength after Olympic kink
Vonn looked to the future in a similar way on Sunday: “Records are there to be broken.
For them the sky is the limit.
She will set the new standard.”
As if on rails: record winner Mikaela Shiffrin after her World Cup victory in Krajnska Gora (Slovenia).
© Pierre TEYSSOT / AFP
After her first slalom Olympic victory in 2014, all experts predicted historical events, and Shiffrin fulfilled their predictions with three overall World Cup victories and all kinds of medals.
But at the Olympics a year ago in Beijing, her career experienced an unexpected, major kink: no precious metal and three failures in her five starts.
Alpine skiing: Mikaela Shiffrin record by Vonn – falling down as an opportunity to get up again
The young woman from Vail, who makes every turn on the board-hard slopes of the ski circus look so soft as butter, had lost her self-confidence.
That was also because she still had to nibble on the unexpected death of her father, who had fallen off the roof at home.
One who helped her out of the deep – Shiffrin even thought about retiring – was her friend Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, a professional skier from Norway.
Aleksaner Aamodt Kilde and Mikaela Shiffrin have been a dream ski couple since the end of 2021.
© S.Jansen M.Kainulainen/dpa
"Alex was one of the first people Mika enjoyed talking to again," said her mother, Eileen.
Shiffrin raved about Kilde on the NBC TV channel: "I learned so much from him, from his positive attitude." She herself has found a new motto in life through the Olympics and the conversations with her boyfriend: "Falling down gives you the chance every time get up again and celebrate new successes.”
That must sound terrible for the competition in alpine skiing, their success is already almost uncanny.
In 232 starts she was the best 82 times.
Your win quotient of 0.352 percent is great - in front of illustrious heroes like tennis great Novak Djokovic (0.329) or golf idol Tiger Woods (0.221).
