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Athletes to watch at Beijing 2022: Mikaela Shiffrin
Athletes to watch: Mikaela Shiffrin
Editor's Note:
The Beijing Winter Olympics are set to kick off on February 4. Global Times has picked some of the biggest names to keep an eye on.
The 26-year-old is already a three-time Olympic medal winner and she has a record haul in her sights, if everything goes to plan.
Things have not gone to plan in recent years for Shiffrin, who won her first Olympic gold aged 18 at Sochi in 2014.
Her father died in 2020 following an accident and she pondered quitting skiing.
"There was a really long time that I didn't really feel like it was worth it to care about anything," she recently told NBC's Today program in the US, explaining that it took a while to get her motivation back. She also struggled with the lasting effects of a back injury and then more recently a COVID-19 positive test.
Sweden's Sara Hector and Petra Vlhova of Slovakia are her biggest rivals in the women's giant slalom in Beijing.
Still Shiffrin has said it is her desire to compete in all five events that she can in Beijing: giant slalom, slalom, downhill, super-G and combined. She has stated that she has a "very aggressive game plan" to compete in all five individual events in her third Games.
The plan was the same at Pyeongchang in 2018 before Shiffrin and her team made the decision to pull out of her other events after her giant slalom win.
"If there are schedule changes I'm hoping to be able to roll with the punches without exerting as much energy. I went through the experience before, but that was four years ago," she told the Olympics website back in November.
"So I'm doing everything I can to relax and try to be optimistic. But when the time comes we will have to be realistic."
Shiffrin, a four-time world champion, needs three more medals to equal the women's alpine skiing record of six career Olympic podiums, which is shared by Croatia's Janica Kostelic and Anja Parson of Sweden. Should she medal in all five then Shiffrin would match the men's and overall record held by Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway.
The Beijing Winter Olympics are set to kick off on February 4. Global Times has picked some of the biggest names to keep an eye on.
Arguably the US skier is the biggest name of all going into the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games next month and Mikaela Shiffrin has at least one eye on making history in the Chinese capital.
The 26-year-old is already a three-time Olympic medal winner and she has a record haul in her sights, if everything goes to plan.
Things have not gone to plan in recent years for Shiffrin, who won her first Olympic gold aged 18 at Sochi in 2014.
Her father died in 2020 following an accident and she pondered quitting skiing.
"There was a really long time that I didn't really feel like it was worth it to care about anything," she recently told NBC's Today program in the US, explaining that it took a while to get her motivation back. She also struggled with the lasting effects of a back injury and then more recently a COVID-19 positive test.
Mikaela Shiffrin of the US competes during the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Women's Giant Slalom on January 8, 2022 in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. Photo: VCG
The US skier is back on the slopes after recovering from that bout of COVID-19 last month, which saw her miss two races, and she is already on the path to glory. Even without getting on the podium in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, where she finished seventh, Shiffrin remains atop the World Cup rankings.Sweden's Sara Hector and Petra Vlhova of Slovakia are her biggest rivals in the women's giant slalom in Beijing.
Still Shiffrin has said it is her desire to compete in all five events that she can in Beijing: giant slalom, slalom, downhill, super-G and combined. She has stated that she has a "very aggressive game plan" to compete in all five individual events in her third Games.
The plan was the same at Pyeongchang in 2018 before Shiffrin and her team made the decision to pull out of her other events after her giant slalom win.
"If there are schedule changes I'm hoping to be able to roll with the punches without exerting as much energy. I went through the experience before, but that was four years ago," she told the Olympics website back in November.
"So I'm doing everything I can to relax and try to be optimistic. But when the time comes we will have to be realistic."
Shiffrin, a four-time world champion, needs three more medals to equal the women's alpine skiing record of six career Olympic podiums, which is shared by Croatia's Janica Kostelic and Anja Parson of Sweden. Should she medal in all five then Shiffrin would match the men's and overall record held by Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway.
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