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Mikaela Shiffrin stands alone in Women's Alpine Skiing [1]

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Date: 2023-01-24  

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Good morning.

This only just happened, so it is not surprising that no one has diaried it. I know this is a political site, but we members have broad interests, and this is one of mine.

The Alpine skiing season this year has been dominated by news of American skier Mikaela Shiffrin’s chase of the Women’s all-time World Cup win total record, held by fellow American, Lindsey Vonn, since her retirement in February of 2019, due to a series of catastrophic injuries that undermined her ability to race.

Vonn focused primarily on the speed events in Alpine skiing, mostly the Downhill and the Super-G, where speeds are highest, and the risks the greatest. NBCSports wrote an article about some of these injuries, focusing on the major ones.

It is hard to calculate how many races Vonn missed due to injury and early retirement (at age 34, but while she was still capable of winning races). It is easy to imagine she would have won many more than the 82 World Cup races she did win. So, Vonn’s place in Alpine skiing is secure, no matter who wins more races. Only the great Swedish skier Ingemar Stenmark ever had more, holding the absolute Alpine record, with 86 World Cup wins.

I follow Lindsey Vonn on Instagram, and even now, almost four full years after her retirement, she frequently posts pictures from recent gym workouts. This may be difficult to imagine, but it looks to me like her overall fitness may be higher than when she was racing. This can’t be easy for her. Her many crashes and injuries mean that she will not likely be pain-free for the remainder of her life. Yet still her focus is that of an elite athlete.

Just last week, she achieved something no other woman has done, when she skied the infamous Streif, a notoriously dangerous World Cup downhill course in Austria previously skied only by men.

More remarkably, she skied it at night, followed down the run by a drone for beautiful nighttime footage. Of course, it was not a race, and she did not ski it at the speeds the men hit on that run. But it was a remarkable thing, even so, and it required a great deal of preparation and training on her part to accomplish it safely. It showed just how amazing a skier she remains, even though she no longer competes. Here is one of the articles about her adventure on the Streif.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/24/2148980/-Mikaela-Shiffrin-stands-alone-in-Women-s-Alpine-Skiing

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