Mikaela Pauline Shiffrin is an American World Cup alpine ski racer. She was born on March 13, 1995, in Vail, Colorado. Her parents, both former ski racers, taught her to ski at two years old alongside her brother, Taylor, in their driveway in Vail. She later moved on to train at Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont, which is the top ski school in the US, known for producing elite alpine skiers.
She started her racing career at eight years old, and at age 14, she won both slalom and GS races at the Topolino Games in Italy, against skiers from 40 different nations. This event is considered the most prestigious children’s ski event in the world. At 15, she won a Nor-Am Cup super combined race at Panorama, British Columbia. A month later, she took home the slalom bronze medal at the FIS Junior World Ski Championships held at Cras-Montana, Switzerland. She then became the youngest woman in US history to win the World Championship at age 17 and the youngest to win the Olympic slalom gold medal at 18. From 2013 to 2023, Shiffrin won six consecutive World Championships, becoming the first skier in history to achieve this. She has won a World Cup race in all six of the disciplines: slalom, giant slalom, parallel slalom, alpine combined, super-G, and downhill, making history with this achievement. Additionally, she holds the world record for World Cup wins in a season for a female skier, as well as the world record for total World Cup wins for both genders, surpassing the previous record of 86. She’s now at 101 total wins and still competing. She is recognized as one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time
On November 30, 2024, during the World Cup in Killington, Vermont, Shiffrin crashed during her GS race. She received a severe puncture wound in her abdomen, a stab-like wound in her oblique muscle. It’s uncertain what exactly caused the wound, but people believe that during her crash, her ski pole, or a part of the gate punctured her stomach. From the crash, she also received severe muscle trauma and torn muscles near her pelvis. She ended up having to get surgery done to clean out the puncture wound and repair the damaged muscle. This World Cup would have been Shiffrin’s 100 World Cup milestone if she hadn’t been injured. Having won 14 times in 2023 and nine times in 2024, she was likely to have won this one as well.
While the injury she received was serious, it didn’t put a stop to Shiffrin’s skiing career. It did, though, take a long time to completely recover and regain core strength; recovery of her mental health also took time as she was struggling with PTSD from the crash. But after a couple of months of recovery, Shiffrin decided to begin competing once again. She went on to win her 100th World Cup in Sestriere, Italy, on February 23, 2025, and just last month on the 27th, she won her 101st World Cup in Sun Valley, Idaho.
