Mikaela Shiffrin is gearing up for the upcoming Ski Cup season as she takes a shot at the overall World Cup record held by Annemarie Moser-Proell.
Shiffrin has a chance to tie Moser-Proell’s record of six overall wins, who dominated women’s Ski Cup alpine skiing in the 1970s.
Last season, Shiffrin broke the record of 82 World Cup victories held by Lindsey Vonn on the women’s side, and two months later, the 28-year-old American surpassed Ingemar Stenmark to become the most successful Ski Cup athlete of all time with 87 victories.
After winning his fifth overall World Cup title, Shiffrin has his sights set on a sixth, which would be an accomplishment only Moser-Proell has achieved.
“When I first met Moser-Proell, I hadn’t reached the level of any of her accomplishments or records,” Shiffrin recalled, “and she said something that really stuck with me: ‘You keep working hard, and you will surpass me.’ At the time, no one would have thought that, but she was way ahead of her time.”
“From a motivation standpoint, nothing has changed. It’s a bit of a strange position. I wasn’t thinking about breaking records, but then that happened last year and everyone wondered if I was going to lose motivation.”
“But I thought to myself, why should I lose motivation after achieving a goal that I never really set out to achieve, instead of going for a fifth championship? I’ve always had a fifth championship as my goal. My motivation doesn’t change because it resets every year, that’s what I think.”
Shiffrin went through a period of change after last season. Surprisingly, she ended a seven-year partnership with coach Mike Day in favor of Norwegian coach Karin Harjo.
With no World Championships or Olympics this year, Shiffrin plans to compete in more events this season, including abseiling and super slalom.
Though she’s still recovering from an illness during a training camp in Chile, she hopes to do well in Saturday’s season opener in Solden, but she’ll take a solid strategy for the weekend’s races.
“I’m not worried about how good I’ll finish in the opening stages of the season,” she said, “I think it’s acceptable to gradually work up to my highest level in the first few weeks of racing.”
“I think I learned a lot from last season. That was to gradually ramp up to my best. This year I’m going to try to take a little bit more of a patient approach and give myself time to ramp up to my best.”
“It’s always a strange feeling going into the race season. It’s like learning to walk or swim again.”