Several weeks ago, our family drove to Winter Park Resort for our first ski trip of the season. We had signed up our boys, seven and five, for lessons, and while they were learning about hockey stops and parallel turns, my wife and I headed o_ on our own. For a warm-up, we descended Lower Hughes, a run that frequently includes a racecourse. As it turned out, Winter Park was hosting a slalom event that day, and as I eased my way down the hill, I could see the racers ripping through the gates. For a brief moment, my personal mantra—DON’T FALL!—was replaced by the thought of Mikaela Shiffrin, the wunderkind from Vail who took home the slalom gold a year ago at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Shiffrin,…
