Anna Stonehouse/The Aspen Times
Olympic champion and Eagle County local Mikaela Shiffrin broke the news Monday morning that her father, Jeff Shiffrin, has died.
The Eagle County coroner has confirmed that Shiffrin, 65, died of a head injury, and the cause of death is an accident. The Shiffrins live in Edwards.
Jeff Shiffrin, with his wife, Eileen, made the Vail area their home decades ago, and together raised Mikaela and Taylor Shiffrin, who was a member of the two-time NCAA Champion University of Denver Ski Team.
In a string of tweets posted to Twitter, Mikaela Shiffrin wrote:
“My family is heartbroken beyond comprehension about the unexpected passing of my kindhearted, loving, caring, patient, wonderful father. Our mountains, our ocean, our sunrise, our heart, our soul, our everything. He taught us so many valuable lessons … but above everything else, he taught us the golden rule: be nice, think first. This is something I will carry with me forever. He was the firm foundation of our family and we miss him terribly … Thank you, from the depths of my heart, for respecting my family’s privacy as we grieve during this unimaginable and devastating time.”
Friend of the team
In a news release, U.S. Ski & Snowboard CEO Tiger Shaw said Jeff Shiffrin was a good friend who will be terribly missed.
“Our — and the entire ski world’s — thoughts and prayers go out to his family during this incredibly difficult time,” Shaw said.
Tom Kelly, who has spent more than 30 years with the U.S. Ski Team as a press liaison, described Jeff Shiffrin as a wonderful person.
“So sad for the loss to the Shiffrin family and our entire skiing community,” Kelly wrote.
Jeff Shiffrin was an anesthesiologist with Vail Health and Anesthesia Partners of Colorado, treating and helping many injured skiers and riders. He was raised in Dover, New Jersey, where he learned to ski as a youth.
A 2014 Sports Illustrated profile of Mikaela said during his childhood, Jeff spent weekends skiing with his family at Stratton or Sugarbush in southern Vermont.
“At 13 he joined the race team at what was then called Great Gorge Ski Resort (now Mountain Creek) in northwestern New Jersey, and on his first day of training he was greeted by an Austrian coach whose only instruction before pushing off the top of the hill was, ‘Follow me,’” the article states. “It was a teaching tactic that Jeff would remember. He later raced on the ski team at Dartmouth and stayed active in the sport after taking up anesthesiology.”
Avid photographer
Jeff Shiffrin is remembered by journalists and the U.S. Ski Team as an avid photographer, often having traveled to Mikaela’s World Cup races photographing her and other U.S. Ski Team athletes. During Mikaela’s rise to the top of the sport, Jeff often shared his photos of Mikaela with the Vail Daily and other media outlets covering her success.
“I always admired how he’d hike the mountain to shoot the race with all the other photogs,” wrote longtime ski sportscaster Steve Porino.
In a post shared Monday, U.S. Ski & Snowboard wrote that Jeff was “rarely in a team picture on the podium because he was always behind the camera capturing the moment.”
And while he was often on the sidelines during her races, he was not known as a parent who coaches had to worry about getting in the way.
“Basically, this is a job for her, and I try not to interfere,” Jeff Shiffrin told the Vail Daily from Russia in 2014 during Mikaela’s first Olympic appearance. “If she were to come visit me at work, I wouldn’t change my routine just because she was there.”
NBC Sports Writer Tim Layden described Jeff as the perfect superstar athlete dad.
“He taught and guided, shared and loved and when the lights got bright, he stepped aside,” Layden wrote.
Mikaela was quick to wish her father happy Father’s Day or happy birthday — he would have turned 66 in March — and she also enjoyed recognizing him when he went out of his way to do something special for her. In 2016, Mikaela used the “lovemydad” hashtag in a tweet about Jeff bringing a memory foam mattress pad to Europe so she could sleep more comfortably.
“Now I am laying on a cloud,” she wrote.
Mikaela and Eileen returned from Europe on Sunday afternoon, and Jeff was surrounded by family and close friends during his final hours.
This story contains material from a U.S. Ski & Snowboard press release.
