Mikaela Shiffrin

Mikaela Pauline Shiffrin (born March 13, 1995) is an American World Cup alpine skier who has the most World Cup wins of any alpine skier in history (men or women) and is considered one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time. She is a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist. She is a five-time Overall World Cup champion, a four-time world champion in slalom and a seven-time winner of the World Cup discipline title in that event. Shiffrin is the youngest slalom champion in Olympic alpine skiing history, at 18 years and 345 days. Shiffrin won her seventh career Alpine world championships gold medal on February 16, 2023, taking her overall tally to 14 medals from 16 career world championship races, and making Shiffrin the most successful skier in the modern era. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023. Background and early years Born in Vail, Colorado, Shiffrin is the second child of Eileen (née Condron) and Jeff Shiffrin, both originally from the Northeastern United States and former ski racers, her mother became a nationally prominent masters racer. Her paternal grandfather was Jewish. Shiffrin's father Jeff grew up in New Jersey and was an avid skier on weekends in Vermont with his family. As an undergraduate, he raced for Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Her mother Eileen raced in high school in northwestern Massachusetts in the Berkshires, and her brother Taylor (born 1992) raced for the University of Denver. When Mikaela was eight in 2003, the family moved to rural New Hampshire near Lyme, where her father, an anesthesiologist, worked at Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center. After five years, he took a new job in Denver; Shiffrin's older brother Taylor was in high school at Burke Mountain Academy, a ski academy in northeastern Vermont, and stayed in the east. Shiffrin also attended middle school at Burke but went with her parents to Colorado before returning to Burke.