27 minute read
Mikaela Shiffrin: The B Magazine
ALWAYS BE FASTER THAN THE BOYS
By HEIDI VOELKER
A native of Pittsfield, MA, Heidi Voelker joined the U.S. Ski Team at 15 and competed in the 1988, 1992, and 1994 Olympics. After 27 years as a ski ambassador for Deer Valley, she’s still in Park City, Utah, with her family, and is now the western region manager for the U.S. Ski team.
Voelker also played a pivotal role in Mikaela Shiffrin’s story—and she shares it here.
WHEN I MET MIKAELA, she was this adorable little girl, about six years old. I was signing posters at an event and I had been introduced to her parents because I was from Pittsfield and her mom, Eileen, was from Lanesborough. Eileen was a masters racer and I had been on the U.S. Ski Team. That was the connection. No one knew then that Mikaela would be the phenomenon that she is.
I’m the youngest of four. My sister is almost 10 years older than I am and then there are two boys; I’m seven years younger than the second one, so it’s a pretty big gap. We grew up at Bousquet. It was kind of our babysitter. My dad was a skier, and taught at the ski school under Court McDermott, who was a fixture at Bousquet for decades.
I got into skiing because it was either stay at home or go along and keep up. So I kept up, or I’d entertain myself at the finish area. My sister tells a story from when I was about seven. Our parents dropped us off at Bousquet. My siblings were going to ski club, and there was also a race. My mom said to me, “Absolutely do not enter that race”—back then, you didn’t need waivers or to have anything signed. At the end of the day, we were all meeting back up at the car, and I was acting weird. And everyone’s like, “Heidi, what’s going on?” I had the trophy stuffed up my coat. I had gone to the race and won.
I went to Stratton Mountain School for four years—going away to school to ski was just what my family did. I really didn’t have the dream of being the best skier, until when I was around 15 and I made the U.S. Ski Team. I realized, “Wow, I guess I’m a little bit better than I thought.”
When I was at Stratton, there were far more males than females. I figured that if I could keep up with the boys, and also with my brothers, I was doing okay.
So that day when I met Mikaela more than 20 years ago, I looked down at her big eyes, and I said, “Do you like to ski?” She said yes, and I said to her, “Always be faster than the boys, and you’ll be fine.” And I wrote it on her poster. And by damn, she took it to heart.
ABFTTB is written on the back of her Atomic racing helmet, and people all over the world associate that phrase with Mikaela. It’s an inspiration for girls everywhere, which is fitting because Mikaela just keeps achieving things that seem impossible. I’m in awe of her.
You always be faster than the boys, and you’ll be fine, I wrote on her poster. And by damn, she took it to heart.
IN HER OWN WORDS
Mikaela Shiffrin is a legend at age 28, the best ski racer of all time. Last season, she broke Lindsey Vonn’s women’s record of 82 World Cup wins, then went on to speed past Ingemar Stenmark’s record 86, which had stood for 34 years. Shiffrin makes it look easy—but she’s also the first to admit that it’s anything but. She has opened up about grieving the sudden loss of her father, Jeff, before a disappointing performance at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, the pressure of expectations, and facing her fear of failure. She shared about all of that, and more, with The B—and we think her honesty makes her even more inspiring.
On Her Roots in the Berkshires
My entire life, I’ve felt like the Berkshires was one of my happy places. Growing up, we would visit my Nana and Papa, and the whole family would come because my mom, her sisters, and her brother all grew up in Lanesborough. So, throughout my life, it was always the reunion spot. We’d often go at Thanksgiving or during the summer, and everybody would plan their trip around visiting Nana and Papa—all the cousins would come.
I have so many incredible memories, and I really love to come back here. I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world, especially in the summertime and fall when the leaves start to change. We would go to Williams football games and for hikes. There’s so many amazing things about the area, including the skiing—all these smaller ski resorts as well as Jiminy and Bousquet—I do truly love it here.
On the Power of Sports
One of the most important and most beautiful things that sports brings into our lives is the development of work ethic and discipline. Which is funny, because sometimes people don’t love to hear about working really hard and being really disciplined and motivated. Sometimes people just want to talk about having fun.
Sports is a really unique thing because it combines fun with discipline—with work ethic, with drive and motivation—as well as the social aspect of being around your friends. It helps feed your competitive side, but hopefully also guides you in a way that can be supportive of your teammates or even your competitors at times.
There’s nothing else in the world that combines all of those different qualities and life skills into one thing that you can really enjoy. For the young kids out there, maybe you want to pursue sports and get to a professional level, or you want to do it in college or high school. Maybe you haven’t started until after college, when you’re well into your professional career, and you’re just starting to think of joining a soccer league or starting master ski racing. There’s literally no limit and I absolutely love that about sports. It’s never too late and it’s always worth trying, because it’s healthy for your body, for your mind. It’s such a great way to exercise and to meet people and develop friends for life.
On Working Out
My workout routine is a combination of things. I do strength sessions three to four times a week, and then I’ll do cardio and interval training and a lot of core training. I do Pilates often, as well, to help my core and keep my back in good shape. I play quite a lot of tennis, so Bousquet Sport is amazing because there are great tennis courts there.
One of my favorite—and also least favorite— exercises is pull-ups. When I was younger, I couldn’t do a single pull-up. So I made it my life’s mission to get strong enough that I could do them. And now I can. It’s still one of my least favorite things to do, but I always feel so accomplished when I can do a few.
There’s nothing else in the world like sports—they combine so many qualities and life skills into one thing that you can really enjoy.
Happy Campers
This past summer, Eileen and Mikaela visited Pittsfield’s Camp Arrow Wood (CAW), where Mikaela was having a lodge dedicated to her. It was a special experience for the Shiffrins and the campers. The kids gathered around the flagpole at the edge of Richmond Pond, and Mikaela shared with them what it’s like for people to put so much pressure on her and almost want to see her fail. She and Eileen also answered questions—lots of questions! Camp Arrow Wood has an emphasis on sports, so the young athletes were eager to take in as much as they could.
“We feel like the area—and specifically Camp Arrow Wood, with its gorgeous location in the woods on Richmond Pond, and its updated buildings and sports arenas—is a hidden gem and a magical place where all youth would be lucky to spend time,” said Eileen. “Camp Arrow Wood represents the essence of our family‘s values—some sport, some culture, living the outdoor life, competition with compassion, and learning to be good humans, partially through experiencing the environment so unique to Berkshire life. Becoming an ambassador for CAW seemed like a very natural course given Mikaela‘s appreciation for the area and the core values of CAW, so having a lodge named for her is meaningful to her.” camparrowwood.com
On Facing Challenges
I’ve learned that everybody faces challenges and struggles, and everybody on some level deals with anxiety. There’s always something we care about enough that the fear of not doing it well enough or having people judge us or not improving or excelling at it—whatever it might be—brings on some level of anxiety. That’s something that everybody can relate to.
For a long time in my career, a couple years at least, I felt like I was alone in feeling nervous and anxious and fearing what the media would say, even what my friends might say. Or disappointing family or feeling like the expectations were so high that I just couldn’t possibly reach them.
And there was a period of time where I felt like, even if I won races, I was still destined to fail. It was a really strange place to be when I was 20, 22,
Mikaela grew up with her parents, Eileen and Jeff Shiffrin, as her biggest supporters; her father passed away in February 2020 after a household accident. Mikaela has said he taught her to “be nice, think first, have fun.”
24 years old, just getting to this point in life where most of my peers are celebrating, turning 21, and life is really just beginning and the world feels like your oyster. I was at a point where I felt destined to fail in this sport because I’ve had such great success. On the one hand, that’s amazing. On the other hand, I’m just setting myself up to literally disappoint people from here on out because I can’t possibly meet these expectations that people have set. I didn’t know how to keep getting better.
It was a really confusing and complicated thing to go through, mentally and emotionally. Over time I realized that life is not a linear climb. If you feel like you’ve reached the top of a mountain, it doesn’t mean it’s all downhill from there for the rest of your life. It just means you reached that summit and it might be downhill for a bit, and then you’ll climb again. You’ll reach different summits, you’ll figure out other things you love to do, or you’ll stick with the same thing, and it’s just going to be peaks and valleys. You’ll get to experience the joy of it more than once in your life. Even in your lowest moments, you can always look forward to things picking back up as long as you’re passionate about it and you’re willing to work to improve.
At that time I thought it was going to be people endlessly picking me apart for not exceeding their expectations. And then, over the next few years, I realized that people reset their expectations that maybe I wasn’t going to win every race by two seconds, but I might still be a contender to win races. The competition was picking up again. And people just sort of roll with the punches in life.
When you think, “the expectations are too high and you’re never going to meet them, so why is it worth trying?” you’ll find that it might be in a couple weeks, it might be in a couple months, it might be in a couple years, but people adjust—and you adjust. As humans, we don’t love to experience change, but we are born to adjust and adapt to our environment.
That’s something that I really hold onto now. Because every time I have a great season, I wonder: “Am I setting the expectations too high?” For instance, this season, after getting 88 wins and resetting this all-time record, now I’m a little bit fearful that people are going to be thinking I’ll break 100 this year. I want to scream from the rooftop: “Could everybody just slow down and reset your expectations because this is just too much pressure!” But then I realize they’ll get there on their own time and, in a way, it doesn’t matter as long as I’m enjoying it.
Most of the time, the reason we succeed is because we’ve learned from failures.
On Success and Failure
We will fail in life and we’ll succeed in life. Most of the time, the reason we succeed is because we’ve learned from failures. And the reason we appreciate succeeding is because we’ve failed before. And that makes the success sweeter. No matter what people say about you, and no matter how many times you fail, you can’t truly be a failure in life. There’s literally nobody out there who is.
I’ve been a failure at moments, and those moments have inspired me to try harder or be kinder. It’s not just at the Olympics, not winning a medal in Beijing. It’s small moments, in ways that I react in situations with family and people I love. It’s simply not feeling motivated enough to do the work that I have to do, and in that moment I feel like I’ve failed. All of those moments, whether they’re big or small, public or private, they’re really important in order to help you figure out what your next steps are to do what you really want to do.
And that thinking and that mindset automatically means you could never be a true failure. B
Going for Greatness
Meet more of our cold-weather sports stars.
By Neil Turitz
Berkshire winters have an upside: They produce some pretty spectacular athletes. Take Pittsfield’s Mary Lou DiNicola, whose speed skating prowess is legendary enough that in The Berkshire Eagle’s series listing the top 50 Berkshire County athletes of the 20th century, she was number seven.
She took up the sport in 1950 at the age of 10, retired at the age of 18, then returned to it 27 years later after working locally as a coach. Starting in 1985, she began entering competitions and was wildly successful, winning several national and world championships in her age group. Still, it wasn’t winning that interested her, it was the rush of being in the race.
“I love competition,” she said. “If I won, that was a plus. If I didn’t, I wanted to make the winner work for it. Like my husband says, I’m just competitive. At everything I do. I think you’re born with it.”
Now 84 and still living in Pittsfield, her competing days appear to be over. “There are not that many competitions for my age group. I still skate, but my last competition was in Lake Placid in 2020. I think you could probably call me retired now. At this stage of my life,” she said with a laugh, “I think this is it.”
One of Heidi Voelker’s teammates on the ’92 and ’94 Olympic teams was Krista Schmidinger, who was a local legend alongside twin sister, Kim. Their father taught them to ski in their backyard in Lee and at Eastover Resort, where he was a ski instructor and lifeguard. Krista describes growing up skiing all the local mountains and racing for Bousquet as “escaping with my twin sister into a world of fun
and freedom and snow and glitter and french fries and hot chocolate with whipped cream.”
Now she lives in Washington, D.C., where her daughter is in high school and she is an entrepreneur developing a high-performing and safer ski.
More recently, Lenox Memorial Middle and High School alum Laura Spector competed in the biathlon—a combination of cross country skiing and riflery—in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
“My mom suggested I try it,” she says. “She said it was a no-strings-attached situation. It was, if you don’t like it, you can quit, but give it a try first. I had some friends who were on the team, and we just had a great time. Because when you’re starting and you’re young, skiing should just be fun.”
Spector is now a scientist living in Los Alamos, New Mexico, with her husband and newborn son. “There was a lot of support from the athletes and from the coaches, and we had the legacy of [two-time Olympian and Berkshires native] Patrick Weaver when I was growing up,” she says. “If you’ve been to Kennedy Park, there’s a trail named after him. So I used to run that trail all the time, and it was pretty inspiring.”
LOVELOCAL
By EILEEN SHIFFRIN
Eileen Shiffrin—herself a masters ski racer, not to mention the celebrated longtime coach of her daughter, Mikaela—developed her passion for the sport and outdoor adventure right here in the Berkshires.
Berkshire Beginnings
Growing up and learning to ski here was a unique and formative experience. All of our outdoor sports existed in the most beautiful setting, with the Berkshire hills as the backdrop and a peacefulness that was hard to match but easy to take for granted as kids. The winters could be magical and exciting, but also brought challenges. Back then we had storms that would heap snow to the top of our wood-sided station wagon. I don’t remember it raining as much back then in the winter, but it did sometimes. We defied the fickleness of the weather by piling on our layers and heading out to ski anyway. We didn‘t have the high-tech waterproof fabrics that we have now, so our day or evening would come to an end when we were drenched through to our skin and freezing to death.
In the fall, soon after Halloween, when the worldrenowned autumn foliage would be nearing its end, my parents would start our skiing craze by bringing us down to the BesseClarke Sporting Goods store on North Street, usually on a dark and chilly fall evening, to get new ski gear and clothing if we had outgrown old gear. Soon thereafter, the local ski areas would start making snow during the cold nights and the season would begin.
My earliest memory of skiing was when I was maybe about 5 years old, traipsing after my brother, P.J., through quite deep snow in the cow pasture across the street from our house, to a short, steep hill where my brother (always the adventurer), neighborhood friends, and I (not much help), would pack down the hill with our skis. We would ski down, hiking back up for the thrill of even 5 seconds of descending again. That‘s how much everyone loved skiing.
Lanesborough had four different small ski areas within about a 20-mile radius from our house. We skied most evenings after school and every weekend all winter long. We could be dropped off, by the bus, on the way home from school. But If we didn’t alpine ski after school then we were probably nordic skiing, on the cross-country trail at Mt. Greylock High School, preparing for our Nordic races. We had enough snow back then to easily host Nordic races at multiple venues within Berkshire County. One way or the other, we skied a lot.
The mercurial weather in the fall/winter created a naturally water-injected, hard surface at the ski areas, which we kind of hated but was good for us, it turns out—and it’s impossible to replicate in the more chic, sunny ski resorts of the world. That is how we all learned to carve turns on “blue ice.” Any other surface, anywhere in the world after that seemed like butter to us. In fact, most of the ski areas Mikaela races at (unless it’s Killington), have to literally put water into the surface in order to create the hard snow we grew up learning to ski on. That challenge instilled a type of grit in all of us that is impossible to teach kids other than experientially.
The atmosphere and environment we grew up in, with its beauty and challenges, left an indelible mark on all of us. The good days were great, so inviting and bewitching that they more than offset the cranky weather days. We grew to appreciate the small things in life, like going home to a nice hot shower, dry clothes, a pot roast dinner, and the “Wide World of Sports” on TV.
Something that is hard to explain or describe is the deep passion for the whole alpine/ Nordic lifestyle that seeded itself in us, in the Berkshires, at young ages. P.J. and my older sister, Annie, participated in a more formal ski program than I did, and they began their dryland program every fall by hiking up Mount Greylock with their team on the weekends. As I approached middle school, Annie would urge me to join the hikes, which I found intimidating (and which she always won). But I did the hikes enough times to remember the pain and also the gratifying sense of accomplishment when we got to the summit.
We moved our family from Colorado to New Hampshire when Mikaela and her brother Taylor were young, for my husband’s work. During the six years we lived there, our family had much easier access to the Berkshires. Mikaela and Taylor spent enough time in Lanesborough—at the home I grew up in with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins—to develop the same appreciation for the lifestyle.
I love to be active when we come to the Berkshires. Luckily, my siblings are of like mind. In the summer we like to play golf, tennis, boat on the lakes, hike the many trails in the area, sit on the lawn at Tanglewood, of course, bike the gorgeous Ashuwillticook Rail Trail, and visit the Clark
Art Institute or the summer theater in Williamstown. With Mikaela having to work out every day, when we are visiting the Berkshires together, we often find ourselves at Bousquet Sport for tennis or the amazing gym. Then we might go have a bite at Bousquet Lodge, where the atmosphere—with a view of the ski hill—and food are great. There might be music, as well.
Another favorite is the restaurant at the top of Mount Greylock, Bascom Lodge. The food is always delicious and the views are spectacular. There’s a plethora of fun things to do in the Berkshires, rain or shine. The only problem is choosing how to spend the time we have there!
Raising a Champion
My husband Jeff and I were never parents who jumped the gun. We knew that, with all sports, kids remain big fish in small ponds usually forever, but the process is still key and fun. By the time Mikaela had fairly
dramatic results in her first real international race in Italy, we started thinking she might be competitive on a more global scale someday, if each of those kids predicted their nation‘s future results. But even then we kept things in perspective and understood it was a junior race. So many things can change between those young ages and the real top level of World Cup Skiing, so we put the encouraging results in their proper place and got back to work with the skiing. I tended to focus more on technique that she might need to improve while Jeff did the data analysis and came up with a pretty positive picture of what Mikaela‘s career could look like as a result of the Topolino races. He was quite accurate, I must say.
Raising and coaching Mikaela was the easiest thing because she was always agreeable, about everything, enjoying life all the time, and absolutely craving instruction and feedback. Her interest in learning, improving, and excelling was like no other. She was like a sponge—and demonstrated exactly what we would tell her to do. She had no issue skiing to repeat the same thing over and over: the ideal student. But I was always her mom, first and last.
I believe one of Mikaela‘s strongest qualities is that she is bright, astute, AND she likes to do things well. No matter what it is. Mikaela is exceptionally mindful and present at all times. She was born that way, with a will to work tirelessly toward an end goal. Mikaela has tended to always be patient with the process, and never wanted to dilly dally or waste time. I believe anyone who has ever worked with Mikaela would say she is extremely methodical and efficient with learning in order to achieve results in the most streamlined way.
Why Sports Matter
I believe sports, including body movement or physical challenge of any sort, is important for humans. We all need to care for our minds and bodies. They work together for us and neither should be neglected. My family growing up, and my husband and our kids, have always naturally struck a balance between the two. Sports help kids move, get blood flowing to the brain, help to relieve mental stress, and help increase endorphins, which can help calm and center a person. Physical fitness is empowering, and helps with self-esteem.
When I was growing up, many sports were available only to boys (Little League baseball, for example). With the passing of Title IX in 1972, however, that imbalance quickly changed and girls now have equal opportunity and access to all sports—so girls, go out there, see which one suits you, and have at it! For boys as well as girls, a sport’s biggest gift initially is just the movement involved, helping kids to take care of body and mind. Then see where it goes from there.
...I was always her mom, first and last.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Like her sister Eileen, Annie Herrick has warm memories of cold Berkshire winters and growing up with siblings that loved to ski.
ANNIE IS THE OLDEST of four siblings, with Eileen; Patrick, known as P.J.; and Caroline behind her. She describes their parents, Joseph and Pauline “Polly” Condron, as athletes, their father being the one who started them skiing at very young ages—mostly “to get us out of the house,” she said.
Annie recalls their family being on a waitlist of about 250 people to join the small, rustic Mount Greylock Ski Club in South Williamstown in the 1960s (the club opened in 1937 and remains open, with P.J. still being involved). Once they were finally admitted to the club, the Condrons would often set off for the day and return home so tired that Polly could barely keep the kids awake for the spaghetti dinner she had prepared.
The Condron kids skied, trained, and raced at Mount Greylock Ski Club under Gerard “Vince” Conway and Jack O’Brien. And off season, they didn’t take much of a break. “Right after Labor Day,” Annie said, “we would hike up and clear the Thunderbolt Trail so we could do dryland training there.”
The hard work particularly paid off in February, 1973, when Annie, a senior in high school, competed in the Berkshire Interscholastic Ski Races, a multidiscipline event that combines
alpine skiing, cross country skiing, and jumps. The winner is crowned Skimeister, and it had never been a girl—in fact, it couldn’t be a girl because girls were not allowed to ski jump in the competition.
In 1973, however, inclement weather made it too dangerous for the jumping to take place. And no jumps meant that “it was the first year that there was a level playing field for all the male and female competitors,” said Annie.
And she won.
After the competition, “everybody was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it looks like a woman has won this race with the overall points,’” recalled Annie. “It was kind of a panic situation. Nobody knew what to do.”
What they did was create the title “Skimeisterin” for Annie (as in, a feminine form of “Skimeister.”) And though previous years had not seen two people honored, that year did. A young man, Bill Lyon*—who came in second place overall—was dubbed the “Skimeister.”
*Bill Lyon, incidentally, still lives locally and skis often. He runs William Lyon and Son Carpentry (and happens to be the father of Mary Daire and Molly Lyon-Joseph, from our story on page 87)
