Known for her record-breaking runs, the U.S. Olympian is ready to talk about staying motivated, handling online comments, and the health conversations worth having.
From the time Mikaela Shiffrin burst onto the world alpine ski scene—winning her first World Cup race at just 17 back in 2012—she’s been known as a fierce competitor and record breaker. She now holds the record for the most World Cup wins by any alpine skier, becoming the first ever to surpass 100 victories. She’s also a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a silver medalist, and the youngest athlete ever to win a slalom gold, a title she earned during her first Olympics in 2014.
But for Shiffrin, 30, that triumph came with private pain: her grandmother, Betty, who was living with Alzheimer’s disease, couldn’t be there to watch in person and instead cheered Mikaela on from home.
Last year when a devastating, world-televised crash left Shiffrin sidelined and uncertain about her future in the sport, she drew on the resilience she’d long admired in her grandmother—a woman who faced hardship with unwavering grace…and, a woman with her own great love of skiing. Now, as Shiffrin looks ahead to the 2026 Olympics, she’s honoring Betty’s legacy in her own way: channeling her endurance, courage, and determination in every race she runs.
Shiffrin recently took time out of her busy practice schedule to sit down with The Healthy and discuss why she’s using her global platform to raise awareness around early symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Lilly. Plus, she shares more on her current headspace as she prepares for the upcoming Olympics, how she’s bounced back from injuries and setbacks, and what she has in common with her fiance, fellow alpine skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde.
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The Healthy: Mikaela, with the 2026 Winter Olympics this coming February, how are you mentally preparing yourself in these remaining months?
Mikaela Shiffrin: I am really excited for these Games, and it’s been a work in progress—not only over the last four years, but really over the course of my entire career, too. I feel like every single season is about foundation building, which at 30 and after the success I’ve had, you think the foundation was set, but I feel like you’re always adding bricks and adding layers.
So it’s been a lot of physical training, a lot of time in the gym, a lot of time on the mountain, especially after the last two seasons. I had a crash actually in Cortina two years ago. Then I had the crash last year in Killington [in Vermont] in November, which took me out for a good portion of the season. So having the two previous seasons up to the Games being kind of incomplete injury seasons, it’s been really important for me to build that foundation back to become, I don’t know, I guess stronger and to be able to come into this season with a clean slate in a way. So [it’s] lots of work. Try to be steady, try to be positive.
The Healthy: You just recently launched your new podcast, What’s the Point?, and your first episode featured an in-depth conversation with your fiance [Norwegian alpine ski racer Aleksander Aamodt Kilde]. One thing the two of you talked about is how people in online comments will give opinions on your personal life, saying you should retire or spend more time with each other. One thing you said was that you’re “not done here” and what you’re doing right now is temporary. Could you talk a little bit more about that?
Mikaela Shiffrin: I mean, life is all about balance. That’s certainly easier said than done. For both of us, for such a really long time, most of our entire lives, the priority has been focused around skiing and training and performance and preparation. We’re also now entering a stage of our life, or maybe fully in the stage of our life, that we’re thinking about what the future can bring, both professionally and also personally. It’s just a funny stage to be at because while we’re having these kind of thoughts and conversations, people online kind of get excited about saying, “Just retire, you should just go spend your time on a beach.” I’m like, “I would love nothing more!” But also, we’re not done here. It’s not really to say that people shouldn’t have an opinion, because everyone does have an opinion and that existed before social media. It’s just that now social media and internet and everything that gives people the option to state their opinion.
It’s just like, well, this is the conversation. We’re not done, and we’ve got stuff that feels important to accomplish or at least to strive for.
It was really important for both of us, actually. For him returning from his injury [editor’s note: Kilde was involved in a serious crash in January 2024], people see Aleks as this incredible Viking, tough-as-nails indestructible. Even through the injury, they still see him as indestructible. I guess part of the point I hope people take away of this is you can be strong and incredible and powerful and also vulnerable at the same time. I feel like hearing him talk about his experience, that got across.
The Healthy: Another topic you discussed in that episode was PTSD after setbacks and injuries. As career wisdom, we can all learn so much from that.
Mikaela Shiffrin: I think the key is that you have to look at yourself holistically. You have to be able to have the self-awareness to know what you want—might not be exactly where you are—and to work with the people around you and determine the steps you need to take in order to get to where you want to be. It’s just not always easy. So communication is really important, and thinking about your world and your life, like I said, holistically. Those are kind of the key pieces.
The Healthy: We know that this campaign you’re doing with Lilly is a really personal one to you. Can you share a little bit more about what made you decide to get involved?
Mikaela Shiffrin: I had seen some of the campaigns that Lilly had [done]—partnerships with athletes and Team USA leading into Paris 2024. A lot of work that really moved me—you mentioned this is personal and for everybody on the Lilly roster, for every athlete, it is something personal. It’s personal experiences we’ve had with various conditions, various diseases. And with my grandmother on my dad’s side, she was such an avid skier and a lover of snow sports. My dad had all these stories about going on ski vacations as a kid and some of his greatest formative memories with his family were skiing. Then my mom simultaneously on her side had very similar experiences, so they kind of came together and here I am. Those experiences, that was something that they wanted to shape … in me and in my brother. That’s been a pretty ingrained part of my history even before I was born—and my grandmother was such a big, big supporter of my career and racing and the excitement around it.
She passed away in 2014, in October. So it was really shortly after the Sochi [Olympics], my first Olympic Games. One of her last memories, one of the last photos that I have of her was watching me in Sochi on TV, obviously she wasn’t there in person. So the impact that I kind of saw this have on my family and through her cognitive and functional decline, the impact that had on my dad, on my aunt, on our family as a whole, it just made this opportunity to partner with Lilly ahead of [these] Games a really incredible thing, something that I’m so proud of because I get to be a part of helping more people in the world and more people in our nation understand the options that are available and how important it is to act early and to know what’s happening with your own thinking and your own cognition. As you detect symptoms, talk to your doctor because Kisunla is a new therapy, a new treatment, or I guess new in the last couple of years. That is an option for people in the early stages. Like anything, there are risks, but if you talk to your doctor, you can see if this is a good option for you. It has the option to allow people more time with their loved ones, which is something I wish I had.
The Healthy: From your personal experience, what would you tell people in terms of being aware of how this could impact their family?
Mikaela Shiffrin: I mean, the most important thing is to look for changes in the way that you function. That can be any number of things, but noticing the self-awareness and the awareness of your loved ones and bringing that up with your doctor. Because in the end, what it takes is working with your medical professionals to determine what you’re experiencing—but it starts with acting early and noticing and having those conversations. When my grandma started being symptomatic, she was not diagnosed right away. It was quite some time where my dad and my aunt were noticing things were declining, and I was quite young, so I didn’t really understand what I mean. I don’t know the exact date timeline, but it was probably in the 2006, 2007, 2008 period. I was young and a little preteen just going about my business. It’s only now kind of this year and with the opportunity with Lilly that I’ve had these conversations with my aunt and kind of looked back on this time period and even fully comprehended what this impact was.
The Healthy: Have you taken up any habits or routines to keep your brain sharp, both for now and for the future?
Mikaela Shiffrin: I certainly do. I do a lot of things. However, I would be careful not to say anything specifically related to Alzheimer’s treatments because, as an athlete, I do a lot of different kind of training and we focus on holistic wellbeing. That is a shared priority with Lilly: holistic wellbeing is the foundation for life, and for athletes especially to have the success that we have.
The Healthy: What is an area of your health that you’re thinking about right now that might surprise people?
Mikaela Shiffrin: I think that the world would assume that for an athlete, especially for an Olympic athlete, there’s a couple things that are just givens. Maybe people would be surprised to know how much work goes into open communication and strategic planning with your team and how much you have to … play an active role in the strategy of what you do and how you build your foundation and how you keep working from there. So going into this season, I’ve had an incredible experience sort of trying to open up the lines of communication even further with the team that I work with. It’s helped, I think, all of us to feel an immense amount of trust in each other as we go into this season. It’s not that wasn’t there before, it’s just that we’ve kind of explored that even further.
The Healthy: Finally, what’s a self-care ritual you refuse to skip?
Mikaela Shiffrin: Except for when I’m traveling for more than 24 hours, I never skip a shower.
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