U.S. ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin has offered a deeply personal insight into grief in an interview with CNN host Anderson Cooper on the podcast All There Is. The Olympic champion spoke less about medals and more about trauma, loss, and why she almost walked away from skiing entirely after the death of her father, Jeff Shiffrin, in 2020. Released as a Father’s Day special, the episode traces her relationship with her father, her mental health journey, and the long emotional road back to the sport that defined her life.
The conversation sees Shiffrin describe rushing back from Italy after her father fell from the roof to be by his side one last time. She recalls him being in a vegetative state, kept alive on life support, and crawling into bed with him after doctors had stepped away for what she knew was a final moment together. She reflects on the complexity of modern medicine extending that time, but also giving her a form of closure. She describes hearing his heartbeat for the last time as he was taken off life support.
In the days and weeks that followed, she admitted she struggled to find meaning in returning to skiing at all. “I lay in bed after my father’s death and saw no point in getting up and skiing,” she said. It was her mother, Eileen Shiffrin, who ultimately coaxed her back into the mountains, hoping she might feel her father’s presence there. That sense of presence is something she still wrestles with, something that eludes her, yet she longs for. But being in the same landscapes he loved gave her a quiet familiarity. Looking back, she says, “I couldn’t imagine my life not having returned to skiing.”
She urges others who are struggling with grief to follow her example and return to the activities they once loved. “If there are things you loved to do before losing that person, I think there is a strong likelihood you will like it again, particularly if it is something you shared with that person. Just give it a go,” she said. “Because I thought I would cut it out of my life entirely and instead skiing has inspired the most growth in me.”
Six years later and Shiffrin is embracing that losing her father has changed her forever and that this loss will always be part of her, part of her fabric, and part of her soul. The idea that grief can simply be “overcome,” she added, is fundamentally wrong. “It’s not something you conquer. It’s like you have an injury to your soul,” she muses.
She also reflects on the broader search for meaning that has followed her loss. “Why are we even doing this?” she asks at one point. It’s a question that, for her, sits beneath everything — sport, work, identity. It also helps explain the creation of her own podcast, What’s the Point, where she speaks with other athletes about purpose and perspective.
Throughout the conversation with Anderson Cooper, she returns to the idea that grief is not linear. She describes it as a maze — something that is never solved, only navigated. “You never really find your way through it,” she said, “but you become more aware of what it is.”
With father’s day approaching, the podcast brings back the gaping hole her father’s loss has left in her life. While her career is going from one highlight and record to the next, the rawness of her grief is still with her and always will be. She acknowledges that those who have not experienced loss will not be able to understand. “Most people won’t understand the traumatic things that have happened in my life,” she said. “I had to accept that.”
Sadly, it is an experience those who have experienced trauma and loss are all too familiar with. The world expects them to move on or to get over it, but, in reality, grief is simply part of who they are now.