Mikaela Shiffrin sets sights on Milano Cortina 2026: "I love competing there"

Alpine ski superstar Mikaela Shiffrin may not have had the Beijing 2022 she and her many fans across the world were hoping for.

But the Milano Cortina 2026 Games are just four years away, and they're being held at one of Shiffrin's happy places.

"I love the Cortina," she said exclusively to Olympics.com, "I love competing there."

At the 2021 World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Shiffrin claimed four medals to become the most successful American skier in event history.

Her tally of 11 medals at Worlds is three more than Lindsey Vonn's eight with her six golds one clear of Ted Ligety's five.

Incredibly she's only 26 so she will be 30 - still very much in her prime - when the 2026 Games come around.

"It's four years from now, so it's hard to say for sure," she says, "but I would make that a goal to get there and to get there in strong form."

Read on for more from her interview where she speaks about what happened at Beijing 2022, and how the loss of her father Jeff two years ago helped her "gain perspective".

The Team USA skier came into Beijing carrying huge expectations as a double Olympic champion with 73 wins in a stellar World Cup career.

But three DNFs in five individual races plus a ninth in Super-G and 18th in downhill were not what she envisaged before the Games.

The 26-year-old was also part of the USA team that finished fourth in the mixed team parallel event, her first time competing in the discipline.

Shiffrin sat down with Olympics.com after it was all over to talk about the experience including how Simone Biles helped her see that it's OK not to be perfect, and by being honest and vulnerable you can actually help and reach more people.

Earlier in the week the World Cup skiing record-breaker said 'I feel