Mikaela Shiffrin still has more to accomplish after record-breaking season

Mikaela Shiffrin doesn’t need to find new motivation because hers has been the same all along.

As she prepares for the start of a new season Saturday, Shiffrin gets why people are wondering if she’s going to lose a step. She now has more career World Cup wins than anyone else, having broken Ingemar Stenmark’s decades-long record in March. If she’s not the definitive answer to who is the greatest skier of all time, hers is certainly one of the names in the multiple-choice selection.

But Shiffrin has never chased records. Or medals. Or even wins. From the time she started racing, she’s chased perfection. Specifically, her definition of it.

She loves the grind of ski racing. The training and the tweaking. The figuring out if there’s a way to squeeze just a little bit more out of her equipment and herself. It’s like doing a puzzle you know you’ll never quite solve but keep working at anyway because, man, is it fun to try.

So while the World Cup record is great and humbling and all the other superlatives, Shiffrin doesn’t need to worry about becoming complacent because that was never her measuring stick.

“Why would I lose motivation after accomplishing something that I never truly set out to accomplish?” Shiffrin asked Thursday.

Now the overall season title, that’s another matter. Shiffrin won her fifth last season, and another would match Annemarie Moser-Proell’s record for women.

That — a sixth overall title, not Moser-Proell’s record so much — is something that drives Shiffrin, because winning it is a reflection of the work she’s put in. If she hasn’t pushed herself in training and during races, if she hasn’t solved a little more of the puzzle, she won’t end up on top.

And just as every training session is a new chance to get a little closer to perfect, so is every season. What she did last year has little bearing on what she’ll do this year. There’s a whole new set of challenges in front of her, and Shiffrin has to figure out the answers to them.

“That just makes me want to fight again this year,” she said. “That motivation doesn’t change. It just resets every year.”

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In years past, Shiffrin has come into the season in top form and tried to maintain that for the next six months. Given the vagaries of an outdoor sport, the multiple disciplines she races and the traveling circus required to pull it all off, Shiffrin has realized that might not be the best approach.

She didn’t feel as if she hit her groove last season until late December or early January, at least in giant slalom, and things seemed to work out OK. Shiffrin won five races and finished second in a sixth between Dec. 27 and Jan. 10, then won six of her final 15 World Cup starts and made the podium in two others.

She also won the GS title at the world championships and finished second in both slalom and super-G.

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So Shiffrin is curious what will happen if she intentionally takes a slow-burn approach to start the season.

“I’m not as worried about starting the season off as strong as I can be. I feel like it’s OK to build into my highest level of skiing throughout these first weeks of competition,” she said. “Honestly, this first race is basically just going to be an opportunity to get the best training that we have access to. Because it’s the only hill properly prepared for ski racing right now.

“So I’m looking forward to the race less for results than to get on a really, really good surface that’s not littered with rocks and that we’re not going to trash skis on. That I can practice my skiing in a really proper way.”

Because, again, it’s not about the results. It’s about the process and trying to see what new things about it she can figure out.

“If I feel amazing on Saturday, I’ll take it. I’m not going to complain about that,” Shiffrin said. “But getting into race season, it’s always a strange feeling. It’s like learning how to walk again.

“The skiing is not the problem. It’s everything else you have to learn how to do again,” she added. “I’m trying to take that somewhat relaxed approach and give myself the best shot of skiing well.”

And there it is, skiing well. The only motivation Shiffrin will ever need.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.