COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colo. (KOAA) — Mikaela Shiffrin is the most successful alpine skier in history, topping 100 career World Cup wins to go along with her two Olympic gold medals.
She missed the podium four years ago in Beijing, but her career has continued to flourish since.
Her sights are set high at Milan-Cortina despite a disappointing result in Tuesday’s team combined slalom race, where she missed the podium after one of the worst races in years.
The Vail, Colorado-born Olympic athlete, who now calls Edwards, Colorado home, still has chances to attain a medal in Sunday’s giant slalom or next Wednesday’s slalom.
Prior to her trip to Italy for the 2026 Olympic Games, Shiffrin skirted the globe in a World Cup season that notched her plenty more wins for her illustrious mantle.
But that grueling training schedule seemed to give her pause when she stopped at the 2025 Stifel Copper Cup at Copper Mountain late last year.
“In the last weeks, we flew to Levi [Finland]. Raced Levi. Flew immediately to Gurgl [Austria]. Raced Gurgl. Flew immediately to Colorado,” she recounted at the base of Copper Mountain in November after a giant slalom run. “So it’s been long travel days, within a week, consecutive weeks, so then we come to the highest race that we’re going to see all year.”
The hint of exhaustion could be heard in the super star’s answers as she determined if the tough training schedule would be a benefit or bust for her Olympic aspirations.
“In theory, the big push now helps, you kind of adapt and get stronger,” said Shiffrin. “I think it's important to build strategy the weeks leading up to the Olympics to make sure that there is some recovery time, which is hard to do because, again, they're going to be racing every single weekend, Saturday, Sunday through the Olympics from here on out and actually a couple of races in the middle of the week as well. So, it's not like the easiest thing to plan out and you just have to listen to your body and take recovery when you can.”
Regardless of whether she’s competing in her home state of Colorado or around the globe in the Alps, her fans turn up in thunderous droves, including the next generation of talent.
Emma Caldwell, a young alpine skier from Black Forest, could barely contain her excitement after watching Shiffrin race at Copper Mountain last year.
“I wanna be a US skier. And I just wanna follow my dreams,” said Caldwell. "And after a brief pause, she added “I wanna be like Mikaela Shiffrin.”
Caldwell met another young ski fan, Twyla van Wyk, watching ski racing the year prior. Van Wyk lives in Phoenix, Arizona, but the two reconnected for the Stifel Copper Cup.
Van Wyk said the sport of skiing and the environment in a place like Colorado is unmatched.
“It's something that most places don't have. Like skiing is where everyone comes together,” said van Wyk. “We all have different places we come from, and it's just like a big, big family community.”
Fans can watch Shiffrin ski again in the early hours on Sunday, February 15 and then Wednesday, February 18. The day’s events will be replayed and recapped on NBC and KOAA each evening.
A feature on the I-25 noise wall that you can only notice when it snows
Is the mountain design on the I-25 south wall intentional? It comes out a bit, so when snow falls, it tends to pile up and look like a snowcap.
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