A Refreshing Story of U.S.A. Gold

When the Sochi Olympics begin our best chance for gold on the mountain may be from a woman not named Vonn. Her name is Mikaela Shiffrin. And while the 18 year-old can ski with the best of them, it is her story that separates her from the pack. Unlike many Olympians that have spent a lifetime training and racing, Shiffrin didn’t race much as a kid. Instead she honed her skills by practicing and not racing. First she practiced at a small hill near her childhood home and then at Burke Academy, in Vermont just south of Canada, or basically off of the grid. Her focused approach–sans the annoying distractions and hype–have made her one of our country’s best hopes for gold in February. Matthew Futterman explains Mikaela’s rise here in The Wall Street Journal.

Behind her meteoric rise is a strategy that might surprise those parents who schlep their children from mountain to mountain every weekend in search of glory on the junior ski-racing circuit: As a kid, Shiffrin didn’t race much.

While other junior skiers were playing videogames in the back of the family Subaru, Shiffrin was playing outside, zigzagging five hours a day on her home mountain, mastering the near-perfect balance with which she blasts through five dozen sets of slalom gates down icy hills.

Her train-at-home strategy stands apart in a competition-obsessed culture that subjects young soccer players to 100 games a year and budding golfers to every-weekend tournaments.

“I think it’s misguided, particularly for young kids,” said Jeff Shiffrin, Mikaela’s father, an anesthesiologist who helped craft his daughter’s training and development regimen with his wife, Eileen. “And in skiing, the risk of injury is so high that trying to perform at a level you’ve never practiced at is asking for a trip to the O.R.”

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

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E.J. Smith is the Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention. E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com. Sign up here to receive all the best content from Richardcyoung.com each week.