No longer ‘mentally tired,’ Shiffrin eyes ‘18 Olympic debut

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA » When an athlete succeeds as often as Mikaela Shiffrin does, the slip-ups suddenly seem to get a lot more attention.

So when Shiffrin held a pre- Olympics news conference Saturday, 48 hours before the first of what could be five events for the American skiing star at the Pyeongchang Games, the initial question was not about her 2014 slalom gold medal or her five-race World Cup winning streak last month. Instead, it was about failing to even finish three of her last four races.

“Yeah, um, I’m not sure where to start, exactly,” Shiffrin said, rolling her eyes a bit as she searched for the right words.

She gathered herself and offered an explanation that went like this: She was tired.

Not so much physically exhausted — although that is a constant factor with the daily grind of the World Cup circuit — as she was simply mentally wiped out.

That made it tougher to concentrate fully, tougher to be at her best and tougher to be what she had proven to be for quite some time, which is the best female Alpine skier in the world — and with the trophies to prove it. An overall World Cup title last season. Three world championships in the slalom, medals that hang in her room back home in Colorado because, she said, “I had dead space on my wall and I wanted to fill it with something, and they look pretty.” The gold medal from the Sochi Games four years ago at age 18, a trinket she wrapped in a sock for safe keeping.

She has won 10 of 23 World Cup races she entered this season — including five slalom victories and two in giant slaloms, her best two disciplines — and went 5-for-5 from Jan. 1-9. But in six appearances since that run of perfection, Shiffrin finished third once, seventh twice and not completed the course on three occasions.

“I was skiing really well, so I thought, ‘Oh, everything’s fine.’ But I wasn’t able to keep my mental focus until the finish, which is something that I actually pride myself on being really good at, normally. So when I’m not able to excel in the last quarter of the course or keep that focus through the finish, that’s when the red lights are flashing,” Shiffrin said.

“AndI think that I needed to change something. That’s the biggest issue: It’s not always easy to tell. When I get mentally tired, I just get more emotional. I get annoying to my coaches,” she continued with a chuckle. “I’m not very fun to be around, and I can’t focus as easily. All those things that are kind of part of who I am sort of disappear.”

Shiffrin said she confronts anxiety —“a lot more mental stress these last two years than I ever had” — by working with a sports psychologist.