CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Mikaela Shiffrin’s grief after her father died was so great her mother didn’t think the all-time World Cup wins leader would ever ski again.
‘Mikaela laid with her head on his chest for nine hours, I think,’ Eileen Shiffrin said in a new episode of adidas’ Illuminated docuseries that was released Thursday, Feb. 5.
‘We ended up having to withdraw support and she heard his heart stop beating,’ Eileen Shiffrin said. ‘That’s a hard thing to go through.’
The episode is filmed mostly at Shiffrin’s house in Colorado, which is filled with pictures of her father. It also features family videos of Shiffrin when she was young, with her parents and early in her skiing career.
For days after Jeff Shiffrin’s death, Shiffrin couldn’t get out of bed, her mother said. She couldn’t eat or drink, and she lost weight.
‘We lost our rock, the person that we all loved the most,’ Eileen Shiffrin said in the episode, as a young Shiffrin is seen with her dad. ‘I didn’t think Mikaela would ever ski again. I don’t think she thought she would, either.
‘We were constantly looking for signs of Jeff’s presence. She (said), ‘I’m just foggy. I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing,” Eileen Shiffrin recalled. ‘I said, ‘We don’t have to ski anymore, but we need to do something besides sit at home. So if you want, we can try skiing and maybe you would go on the hill and feel dad there?”
The rest of the 2019-20 season was canceled because of the COVID epidemic. Shiffrin went to Europe that fall for the start of the World Cup circuit, only to injure her back. She didn’t race again until November 2020.
‘There was this crazy battle between I don’t really want to be here or existing, but I still like ski racing, and I still am good at it, and I still want to win races,’ Shiffrin said.
Shiffrin has spoken often of not having her usual store of energy that had made her so formidable in the second runs of tech races. But that heaviness gradually lifted, each day bringing her a little closer to where she’d been before her father died.
On Dec. 14, 2020, Shiffrin won the giant slalom in Courchevel, France. It was her first win since Jeff Shiffrin’s death.
Shiffrin would win three more times that season, including the combined title at the world championships in Cortina, site of the women’s Alpine races at the 2026 Winter Olympics. She also won a silver in the giant slalom at those worlds, as well as bronzes in the slalom and super-G.
‘Winning was just sort of the statement, the proof that, ‘Oh, I’ve got fire. I’m just trying to figure out who I am again,” Shiffrin said.
The 16-minute episode is a sweet and revealing look at the relationship between Shiffrin and her mother, who has been by her side for her entire career. Shiffrin has often praised her mother, who also was a ski racer when she was younger, for knowing her skiing as well as anyone and being able to identify things others cannot.
‘I love feeling like there’s something I still have to offer that only I can give to her. It’s just still magical and special,’ Eileen Shiffrin said in the docuseries. ‘Knowing us, I don’t think we’re going to stop anytime soon.’