Less than three weeks before her 19th birthday, Mikaela Shiffrin was just a day removed from her first Olympic medal before youthful enthusiasm got the best of her and she began talking about her plans to win several more.
“Right now, I’m dreaming of the next Olympics,” she said then, “winning five gold medals, which sounds really crazy.”
Three years later, the 21-year-old alpine skier’s dreams haven’t dimmed a bit. In fact, they’ve been a guiding light these past three years. Later this month, she’ll visit PyeongChang, South Korea, for the first time, a chance to set her skis in new snow and dream about what might waiting one year down the line.
“Pretty psyched to see what it’s all about and get eyes on the venue,” she said earlier this week. “Figure out where the bathrooms are and all of that.”
Thursday is the one-year-out mark for the 2018 Opening Ceremonies. While the clock ticks, several big questions linger, especially for the U.S. team. Among them: To what extent will Russian athletes, still under a cloud of doping suspicions, be allowed to compete? Which newcomers will supplant the many aging or recently retired American stars? And will the NHL allow its players to compete in PyeongChang?
“We’re waiting just like everyone else in terms of how this all sorts itself out,” said Alan Ashley, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s chief of sport performance. “I can tell you one thing, we have a Plan A and a Plan B and we’ll be ready for whatever the outcome is to make sure our hockey team is ready to go.”
What is known: Shiffrin, one of the best-known and most reliable stars for the American team, expects to be back. She’s the leader in this season’s standings for the overall World Cup title and is in St. Moritz, Switzerland, this week, competing in the world championships. Shiffrin is trying to win a third straight slalom title there and will also race the giant slalom.
But these world championships aren’t exactly a preview of next winter’s Olympics, she says. That dream of winning five medals is still far-fetched, but it isn’t dead.
Only one other female skier – Croatia’s Janica Kostelic – has won as many as three Alpine golds at a single Olympics (2002) – but Shiffrin hopes to take on at least that many events in PyeongChang.
Since the Sochi Games, she’s dabbled in the speed events. She started competing last year in the super-G and the combined, and earlier this season Shiffrin made her downhill debut.
Focusing on just the technical races at these world championships is part of a plan, she explained, one that puts her on the podium in Switzerland but pays bigger dividends a year from now.
“These are the kinds of periods where I can make breakthroughs with my skiing, with my equipment, with my mentality that last me through the Olympics and could very well be the difference between a gold medal and 10th place,” she said.
After the world championships, she’ll keep testing herself in the speed events and isn’t yet ready to rule out any of them for PyeongChang. “I’m trying to set myself up to be a medal contender in three or maybe four events,” she said this week, “which would be really incredible.”
Shiffrin is a more well-rounded skier and a more mature competitor than three years ago, when she became the youngest slalom champion in Olympic history. She’s dealt with some disappointing finishes, displayed incredible consistency and recovered from a knee injury that sidelined her for two months last year.
“It’s gone by fast. There’s so much that has happened between Sochi and now,” she said. “I feel like I was a baby back then. I’m still young but all of a sudden, so much has happened.”
Three years ago, Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller, Ted Ligety and Julia Mancuso were the U.S. Alpine rock stars. While those Olympic medalists have all battled injuries since Sochi, none has ruled out PyeongChang. (Vonn, though, is the only one competing at the world championships this week.)
A year from now, Shiffrin will be the one in the spotlight. She was just a rookie on the Sochi stage and knows PyeongChang will surely be a different experience.
“On the one hand, it’s nice to know a little bit of what to expect going into these next Olympics since I was in Russia,” she said. “But at the same time, it’s going to be a totally new feeling, having been to an Olympics before, having won a gold medal. There’s definitely more expectations around me going into this next Olympics.”
