On Shiffrin and Hirscher:
They are eerily similar in my mind. I think all the way down to really strange details. They are two of the best there has ever been – best male and female the sport has seen. They both have very close relationships with their parents who travel around with them, who are their closest confidantes who they both bounce ideas off of them. They both were successful very young and they are both very balanced. Their style of skiing is the same…they have brought consistency and speed to events that just didn’t have that combination of things before. I would say many, many more significant similarities than differences, but obviously personality wise, Shiffrin is a little but younger, light-hearted American style, a lot of laughing and playing with her friends, Hirscher deals with a lot more pressure. I think the Austrian mechanism is really tough. It’s tough for anybody, but with his level of success, unprecedented, the Austrian machine I think crushes him a bit and that’s tough for him, but I think inside they are probably very similar personality wise as well.
The transition in turns seems to be quicker, for both of them?
I don’t think it’s quicker, I think the transition is actually slower, which makes them better. The more time in between turns, the more adjustments you can make. You don’t want to be making adjustments once you start your turn. When you start your turn, you want it to be a fixed turn like a golf swing. What they do really well, better than anyone else, is get on and off the edge. They do that by being in a powerful position, being able to produce more force and doing that earlier in the turn. They allows you to have tons of lateral power. If you wait and finish the turn below the gate, you end up using a lot of energy and force on your legs, you get tired more quickly, and your transition is shorter because you’re finishing the turn later. It’s how they brought consistency to it and I think it’s remarkable they both came along the same road. I was on the other end of the spectrum, I was longer on the turn and quicker in the transition and they’re the opposite. That’s how they’re able to make so many great turns with so few mistakes and in an event where that’s not normal at all.
Eurosport, Casa delle Olimpiadi
https://www.eurosport.com/alpine-skiing/pyeongchang/2018/the-cube-bode-miller-greats-shiffrin-and-hirscher-are-eerily-similar_vid1062285/video.shtml
