Mikaela in Manhattan: Shiffrin scripts marvelous ski season

Mikaela Shiffrin generally whizzes past mountain gates at 80 mph. She had a much harder time maneuvering through the crowd at Macy's.

The 24-year-old skier arrived in Manhattan to celebrate the end of a record-setting season, which included an unprecedented 17 World Cup wins and her third straight overall title. Lindsey Vonn won four overall titles before she retired this season at the age of 34.

Shiffrin returned from the Pyrenees mountains — after a brief visit to Barcelona with her French boyfriend and skier Mathieu Faivre — for a meet and greet with fans at the watch counter at Macy's on Thursday for sponsor Longines.

Mikaela Shiffrin poses for photographs with fans at Macy's Thursday, March 21, 2019, in New York. The 24-year-old American spent time in New York to celebrate an unprecedented 17 World Cup wins and her third straight overall title.(AP PhotoFrank Franklin II)

"It was a little bit, where am I going?" she said with a laugh about the flagship store.

Shiffrin had no such problems on the slopes this season.

She is the first skier — male or female — to win World Cup discipline titles in slalom, giant slalom and super-G, plus the overall title in one season. She broke the women's record and tied the men's record for most slalom wins with 40. She is the youngest skier to reach 50 World Cup wins and now has 60.

Mikaela Shiffrin listens to a question during a news interview Thursday, March 21, 2019, in New York. The 24-year-old American spent time in New York to celebrate an unprecedented 17 World Cup wins and her third straight overall title.(AP PhotoFrank Franklin II)

Not bad for an American skier who at age 6 told her parents she wanted to be the best in the world.

She crouched in the snow cradling the giant slalom crystal globe after clinching that title for the first time on March 17, four days after her birthday.

"I'm most proud of the GS globe," Shiffrin said. "This year, I had some breakthrough moments with giant slalom. Winning the final race was one of the more emotional moments."

Mikaela Shiffrin listens to a question during a news interview Thursday, March 21, 2019, in New York. The 24-year-old American spent time in New York to celebrate an unprecedented 17 World Cup wins and her third straight overall title.(AP PhotoFrank Franklin II)

She made the media rounds in New York and taught Jimmy Fallon the shuffle dance during an appearance on "The Tonight Show." She will get a two-week break and spend time with her 97-year-old grandmother and settle into a new house in Colorado.

Shiffrin competes mostly in Europe during the ski season and enjoys relative anonymity back in the U.S. But that may change with the retirement of Vonn and given Shiffrin's record wins, prize money and endorsements. She is featured in a TV commercial for Barilla with tennis star Roger Federer. Fallon called Shiffrin "the most dominant skier on the planet."

Here are more things to know about Shiffrin, whose parents were both ski racers:

Mikaela Shiffrin responds to questions during a news interview Thursday, March 21, 2019, in New York. The 24-year-old American spent time in New York to celebrate an unprecedented 17 World Cup wins and her third straight overall title.(AP PhotoFrank Franklin II)

TEAM EFFORT

Shiffrin knows her level of success takes a village of support, including her family, coaches, trainers and conditioning experts.

"When it comes down to race day, we don't leave it to chance and we don't leave it to luck," she said. "We only have three days in between races, it's my only block of training. They're figuring out the logistics, do we fly here, drive there, where do we go, what's the best conditions? Do we need to send somebody ahead of time to inject the slopes so the snow is hard enough when I arrive? They are on top of that all the time."

Three years ago, she enlisted coach Mike Day, who she said has had a "calming effect" compared with some "very intense coaches in the past." He's "even-keeled" and helps "block out the noise."

BREAKTHROUGHS

An early season victory in December in the super-G — her first in that discipline— at Lake Louise in Canada was key to launching her successful season, Shiffrin said. She'd had no super-G training since ski camp in Chile three months earlier. A slalom and giant slalom technical racer, her goal was to "just enjoy it" and "lay down a really good run." She called it "the most fun I'd had in a race for a long time."

That win set the tone for a remarkable season.

"I thought, if I could keep this 'high standards, but no expectations' kind of mindset for the rest of the season, then I think it's going to be really good. That was a huge piece of it."

It translated into improved skiing, confidence and giant slalom turns "faster than anyone else can do." Weather and course conditions are constant variables.

"The races I won this year, maybe I had to fight for it or maybe I just skied a lot better and I earned it. That's a special kind of feeling. My GS is definitely on a different level."

MOTHER LODE

Her mother, Eileen, is a coach, video analyst, hill inspector, travel companion and all-around guiding force. They thought about tapering Eileen's travel schedule before the season, but the successes kept her on the road.

"She's family, that unconditional love," Shiffrin said. "She's only there for me. It's not like her salary rides on my success. Her happiness rides on my happiness. I'm happiest when I'm able to ski my best."

Eileen was her study partner when Mikaela was home-schooled the last two years of high school, which allowed her to travel on the World Cup circuit during the winter at age 16 after attending Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont.

"My mom is the most driven person I've ever known, but she's driven about the things she cares about. So I think people often look at her and they just assume that she has pushed me. Yeah, she pushes me in the sense that she keeps me on track. My parents were always helping me be a better skier."

LOW RISK

Shiffrin has had a relatively injury-free career, in part because her team is selective about scheduling races so she gets enough rest and training while avoiding high-risk situations. That also makes her one of the "best prepared on the circuit."

"With every minor injury I've had, I've learned a lot from it," she said.

While injury can be "part of the sport," Shiffrin said it doesn't need to keep her "out of the sport for a majority of my career."

UP NEXT

She asked her team not to rest on her laurels and to "stay on top, keep working. There's always this driving force, don't stop now, don't get complacent."

At this rate, Shiffrin could approach the record of 86 World Cup wins held by Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark. Vonn finished with 82 wins.

"Skiing has given me so much joy and so many incredible experiences in life," she said. "I owe it to the sport itself to be the best that I can and push it to a new limit."

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

The state of Vermont did not provide adequate oversight to prevent the massive fraud that occurred in ski area and other development projects funded by foreign investors' money through a special visa program, a state audit has found.

The financial scandal first revealed in 2016, which became the state's largest fraud case, shook Vermont and the economically depressed region called the Northeast Kingdom.

In 2018, Vermont's former attorney general asked for an audit of the state's involvement in the projects at Jay Peak and Burke resorts to address the loss of trust in state government from the fraud, State Auditor Doug Hoffer wrote in the report released on Thursday. The audit was completed after the legal proceedings concluded, he wrote.

The findings should not be entirely surprising, Hoffer wrote.

“In short, we found a pattern of misplaced trust, unfortunate decision-making, lengthy delays, and missed opportunities to prevent or minimize fraud,” Hoffer wrote.

Ariel Quiros, a Miami businessman and former owner of two Vermont ski resorts, was sentenced in 2022 to five years in prison for his role in a failed plan to build a biotechnology plant in Newport using tens of millions of dollars raised through the EB-5 visa program. Under the program, foreigners invest $500,000 in U.S. a project that creates at least 10 jobs in exchange for a chance to earn permanent U.S. residency. William Stenger, the former president of Jay Peak, and William Kelly, an advisor to Quiros, each got sentences of 18 months.

But the fraud encompassed seven other projects at Jay Peak and Burke resorts.

In 2016, the federal Securities and Exchange Commission and the state of Vermont alleged that Quiros and Stenger took part in a “massive eight-year fraudulent scheme.” The civil allegations involved misusing more than $200 million of about $400 million raised from foreign investors for various ski area developments through the EB-5 visa program “in Ponzi-like fashion.”

In a Ponzi scheme, money provided by new investors is used to pay high returns to early-stage investors to suggest the enterprise is prosperous. The scheme collapses when required redemptions exceed new investments.

Quiros and Stenger settled civil charges with the SEC, with Quiros surrendering more than $80 million in assets, including the two resorts. In the seven projects at Jay Peak and Burke, “construction was done but not always to the specifications or at the costs told to the investors. Significant funds were simply misused,” the report said.

Under the EB-5 program, the federal government designates regional centers to promote economic growth and oversee and monitor sponsored projects, the report states. Most regional centers are privately owned but the Vermont Regional Center was state government-run.

The center, which was the EB-5 office within the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, had competing duties: to market and promote EB-5 projects and to regulate them, the auditor's report states.

"Experts and policymakers have long warned against such arrangements for fear that an agency relied upon to help a project succeed may be reluctant to exercise its regulatory powers. In addition, a marketing office may not have the skill sets needed to properly regulate complex financial arrangements such as EB-5. Unfortunately, this proved all too true at ACCD,” the report states.

Last July, the state of Vermont agreed to pay $16.5 million to settle all pending and potential lawsuits from foreign investors in the development projects.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is still determining the immigration status of the Jay Peak and Burke investors, Goldstein wrote. At least 424 of 564 Jay Peak investors have already received green cards and the state is working to increase the chances that many more do, she wrote.

FILE - The water park at Jay Peak resort in Jay, Vt., April 18, 2016. A state audit has concluded Thursday, March 28, 2024, that Vermont did not provide adequate oversight to prevent the massive fraud that occurred in ski area and other development projects funded by foreign investors' money through a special visa program. (AP Photo/Lisa Rathke, File)