Mikaela Shiffrin is in a league of her personal. The 28-year-old American downhill snowboarding phenomenon smashed the all-time report for World Cup race victories (87) final yr and by most accounts has fairly a number of years to go in her unprecedented slope dominance.
However in accordance with a New York Instances profile, as a substitute of specializing in the profession arc of such fellow double-Olympic champs as alpine legend Ingemar Stenmark (whose World Cup report she broke), when Shiffrin appears to be like for examples for sustaining — and increasing — her snowboarding superiority the idol she desires to emulate is a pop one.
“I’ve spent 15 years learning Taylor Swift and she or he has been guiding me a bit bit each step of the way in which,” Shiffrin, 28, advised the paper concerning the music star whose profession path has featured related large highs and soul-sucking lows. “It’s why most Swifties develop into Swifties. It looks like her music is talking on to you. Her experiences resonate; I’ve all the time tried to study from them.”
A Swiftie since age 13, Shiffrin made her World Cup circuit debut at 16 — the identical age Swift, now 34, was when she started recording her debut album — and has reached the type of rock star standing in ski-crazy Europe as Swift has throughout the planet. Shiffrin rented a set to catch Swift’s Eras Tour in Denver over the summer time, which she described as “three hours of leaping up and down whereas singing each track on the prime of my lungs” as she looked for a lesson which may form her personal subsequent “period.”
Like Swift, Shiffrin was thrust into the worldwide highlight early, after successful three World Cup races and a world championship gold medal as a highschool senior. Listening to Swift’s 2008 Fearless album, Shiffrin mentioned she plumbed the gathering for cheat codes about residing as a public determine.
“Granted, Taylor is a giant fish in a giant pond and I’m extra of a giant fish in a small pond,” Shiffrin advised the paper. “However you possibly can see how she’s dealt with the eye, as a result of she was an adolescent too. She was capable of maintain up and work on her music. And whereas she’s very snug sharing plenty of her life, she builds a layer of safety when she wants it. She will disappear. That does appear to offer her vitality.”
Shiffrin mentioned she took these classes in and assimilated them, although her journey was made tougher due to her nature as an “excessive” introvert. After taking a gold and silver on the 2018 Olympics, adopted by 17 race wins, a poor displaying the subsequent yr flung Shiffrin right into a funk as she anxious about whether or not she might ever attain these heights once more.
And, as soon as extra, a Swift album helped her discover her stability. This time it was 2017’s Popularity, the singer’s response to public and media scrutiny after her earlier album, 1989, thrust the singer into international stardom. “That album was constructed of principally having her repute go extremely downhill, or a minimum of that’s how she perceived it with all of the feuds that had been happening on the time,” Shiffrin mentioned of Swift’s public feud with Kanye West and then-wife Kim Kardashian. “However she got here again in a giant, huge manner. I associated to the album as a result of it made me really feel like life is filled with ebbs and flows. And that the whole lot might be going to be OK.”
Shiffrin’s mom, former ski racer Eileen, described how her daughter’s profession thrives on “creativity,” noting that each new Swift track, live performance and video gives inspiration and motivation for the subsequent problem. “She [Swfit] retains Miki ticking like she does the entire world. And she or he stands her floor, as she ought to, and that’s an important position mannequin,” mentioned Eileen Shiffrin, who additionally praised Swift’s “avenue smarts” and enterprise savvy.
Following the stunning unintentional loss of life of her father in an accident in Feb. 2020, Shiffrin turned to Swift’s pandemic album Folklore for assist navigating grief. She cued in on the track “Epiphany,” which Swift mentioned explores the emotional misery confronted by well being care staff and troopers at battle. “She actually addressed essentially the most unforeseeable and horrific expertise I ever have gone via,” Shiffrin mentioned of the album that got here out 5 months after her father’s passing; Swift’s dad and mom have every had most cancers battles. “It speaks on to the experiences I had within the hospital with my dad.”
Although Swift has served as a type of unofficial north star throughout Shiffrin’s record-smashing run, the telegenic ski celebrity mentioned she’s scared of assembly her idol in particular person. “I’d in all probability journey over myself and be so tongue-tied,” Shiffrin laughed. “After which it’d be memorable to her as a result of it’s the primary time she’s skilled, like, a goofball.”
At the same time as new metrics have to be created to measure Swift’s success, Shiffrin mentioned she admires how the singer “simply retains going.” Given their mutual championship mindset, Shiffrin wonders if we’ve even touched “1 p.c of what she [Swift] can accomplish” along with her music. “I take into consideration my snowboarding in an identical manner. I’m nearer now to reaching my potential, nevertheless it’s not a few report or one other title,” she mentioned. “I’ve seen Taylor simply retains going. In a manner, you by no means end doing that work.”
Shiffrin will look so as to add to her medal haul in March on the World Cup Finals.