Who is Mikaela Shiffrin?
USA's Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates after winning an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom in Courchevel, France, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2017. Credit: AP / Gabriele Facciotti
— Mikaela Shiffrin was born on March 13, 1995, in Vail, Colorado.
— Shiffrin began skiing at age 2 in her family’s driveway.
— At age 18 and in her first Olympics, Shiffrin became the youngest ever to win gold in the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Games.
— Last year Shiffrin became the first woman to win three consecutive slalom world titles since Germany’s Christl Cranz won her fourth straight in 1939.
— Shiffrin, 22, is the second skier to record 41 World Cup wins before the age of 23. Austria’s Annemarie Moser-Proell is the other.
— She has a chance to make history in Pyeongchang, where she could tie or break the record for most alpine skiing gold medals in a single Olympic Games. Croatia’s Jana Kostelic won three in Salt Lake City in 2002. Shiffrin is a favorite to defend her 2014 slalom gold and also will be in contention in the giant slalom, which she finished fifth in in 2014. She likely will compete in the downhill, super-G and the alpine combined.
— Shiffrin recorded a fifth straight World Cup win — a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Germany’s Katja Seizinger did it in 1997 — earlier this month in Flachau, Austria.
— NBC Sports debuted a documentary before the start of the Olympics called “Mikaela Shiffrin: Peak Season,” which took an inside look at her 2017 season.