Mikaela Shiffrin’s Olympic prep has included covid, isolation, tears — and relief

The Olympics were only five weeks away, and the most prominent Team USA athlete was sequestered in a hotel room in Austria, reduced to doing pull-ups on her bed frame and lunges with a single 15-kilogram plate and knocking on the wall to say hi to her mother in the adjacent room. This is not how a two-time gold medalist is supposed to prepare for winning more gold medals. But covid-19 doesn’t care if the Olympics are afoot, so here was Mikaela Shiffrin, coughing and with a sore throat, in isolation when she should have been ski racing. Read More