Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn’s Former Mentor Makes History, Becomes First Female Head Coach for Alpine Ski World Cup Team

The Canadian Alpine Ski Team made history today with a signing that will become etched into the history books. The team hired a new head coach for the women’s team, Karin Harjo for the Alpine Ski World Cup.

This is a watershed moment in the history of the Canadian sport. Harjo is the only woman head coach who will lead an Alpine Ski World Cup team. Moreover, Harjo has quite the resume herself, having worked with legendary skiers Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn.

Karin Harjo will lead Canadian women in the Alpine Ski World Cup

Karin Harjo is the new head coach for the women’s alpine World Cup team for Canada. In fact, she has quite an impressive bunch of credentials to her name.

Harjo was the Head Western Region Coach for the US Ski Team from 2011 to 2015. Furthermore, she was also the Assistant World Cup Tech Coach for the US Women’s team from 2015 to 2017.

Most recently Harjo was appointed as the Assistant Speed Coach for the Women’s Speed Team till 2022. Over the course of her career in coaching in the USA, Harjo worked with legendary names such as Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin as well.

Harjo isn’t the only woman in history to have had the honor of leading an Alpine Ski World Cup team. It was Marie-Theres Nadig, who, in the 2004-05 season, led the Swiss women’s team in the World Cup.

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“I’m very excited to join the Canadian Ski Team and its promising and dedicated group of athletes,” Harjo stated about her new position. She expressed that she looks forward to creating “a culture of excellence” to empower every athlete to reach their fullest potential on the team.

Mikaela Shiffrin’s roller-coaster 2022 season

It is no secret that the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics reaped less-than-desirable results for 3-time Olympic medalist Mikaela Shiffrin. However, she bounced right back at the FIS Ski World Cup 2022.

Shiffrin was locked with Slovak rival Petra Vlhova throughout the season in the chase for the overall championship. Towards the end, Shiffrin prevailed, digging deeper than ever before to walk home with her crystal globe.

This was Mikaela’s fourth overall World Cup skiing title, and with more years ahead of her, she will undoubtedly be hungry for more. Certainly, she will be setting her sights on Annemarie Moser-Proll’s record of six overall FIS World Ski Championship titles.

At the end of her illustrious career, the one thing that remains certain is that Mikaela will go down in history as the greatest alpine skier of all time, if not one of them.

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