Mikaela Shiffrin: 'Roger Federer, one of my idols, gave me cool advice'
At the age of 23, Mikaela Shiffrin is already one of the greatest skiers of all time, making her debut in the World Cup in 2011 at the age of 15 and winning her first World Cup slalom race in Are in December 2012. Throughout the last six years, the 23-year-old American has written some of the brightest pages of alpine skiing, becoming a two-time Olympic slalom champion and winning no less than 54 World Cup races across all six disciplines, standing alone on that feat. Back in September, Mikaela had a chance to meet the 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer, sharing the same sponsor - the pasta maker Barilla.
The youngster was fascinated with the way Roger pays attention to every single person he had spoken to and she also received advice from tennis legend to appreciate and enjoy every victory. Despite her fantastic run in 2019 season so far (the third consecutive Overall World Cup is almost secured), she and her team are taking a different approach, trying to find time for some exciting activities outside the white world of skiing where she already set some mighty impressive records that will take some beating.
“I was able to meet Roger Federer, who is one of my idols,” Shiffrin said. “We talked a little bit about what he would have done in his career if he had to do it over and he said that in his heyday when he was his busiest, he would have tried to take a little bit more time to celebrate the victories. I really took that to heart and this entire season my whole team has just been trying to keep everything a little more light-hearted. I still have the full level of focus that I’ve always had but I’m just trying to remember that at the end of the day it’s ski racing — we’re not at war.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2MwhHoK
No comments