Sports Illustrated - USA (2022-02)

She would stand in starting gates and forget where she
was, unable to remember simple things like the location
of the first turn. She would “black out” while competing,
her memory blank when a run ended. At a race in Slovenia
last January, darkness descended, and the view down an
icy, steep slope seemed perilous. “I’m not ready for this,”
Shiffrin told her mom and her coaches. “I should not be
doing this. I’m not there mentally.”
With time, she uncovered ways to cope. She began to
envision not an ideal future, which would have included her
father, but at least a more palatable one. Once her thinking
changed, everything else did, too—from her performance
at races, to getting out of the bed each morning. Shiffrin
began dating fellow ski champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde
of Norway after Jeff’s death. “Aleks came into her life at
a time when we all really needed it,” Eileen says, noting
that his optimism was like medicine.
When the opening ceremony takes place on Feb. 4,
Shiffrin will be in a different place than she was in 2018.
This time, she’ll have taken to heart a lesson her father
emphasized: process over outcome.
After Jeff’s death, once approach became her focus,
Shiffrin tied the record for most World Cup wins in a
single discipline with her 46th slalom victory in November.
Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark had held that mark for
32 years. Shiffrin equaled it by age 26, and, for proof of
the power in her shift, she wasn’t aware until after she
competed. (Shiffrin missed a chance to break that mark
in December when she had to pull out of a World Cup
event in Austria after testing positive for COVID-19.)
Those weighing whether Shiffrin will win in China
are asking the wrong questions. It’s not: Can she match
or exceed Julia Mancuso’s mark for most career Olympic
medals won by a female American skier (four)?
There’s a more pertinent query that speaks to her evo-
lution: Is she better equipped to handle the Olympics,
regardless of how she fares? She thinks so. Hopes so.
As Taylor watched his sister read John Denver at his
ceremony, he started to cry tears of joy. He kept think-
ing—this is cathartic, monumental, a moment of absolute
elation that needs to be remembered. Grief remained. It
always will. But those words, on that day, showed the
Shiffrins they could be sad and move forward, all at once,
which made their grief feel a little less heavy, which made
tackling it a little less exhausting.
If I should live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you
As Eileen watched her son dance with his bride, and
spied her daughter’s elation, it seemed O.K. to look ahead,
however unsteadily, toward everything the Shiffrins had
put on hold. Eileen allowed herself a moment. “Our job
is done, Jeff,” she whispered. “We did good.”

62

JESSIE DIGGINS

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING

The history-making

Minnesotan returns after

winning TEAM USA’S

FIRST MEDAL in the sport

FLYING

START

Diggins kicked

off 2021 with a

record-breaking

Tour de Ski win in

early January.

MEET TEAM USA

FEDERICO MODICA/NORDIC FOCUS/GETTY IMAGES