{"id":1318049,"date":"2020-02-03T20:52:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T03:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/mikaela-shiffrins-father-jeff-dies-unexpectedly-at-65\/"},"modified":"2020-02-03T20:52:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T03:52:00","slug":"mikaela-shiffrins-father-jeff-dies-unexpectedly-at-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/mikaela-shiffrins-father-jeff-dies-unexpectedly-at-65\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikaela Shiffrin\u2019s father, Jeff, dies unexpectedly at 65"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
US skier Mikaela Shiffrin posing with her parents after accepting the overall crystal globe award on Sunday on Aspen Mountain.<\/strong>
Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Olympic champion and Eagle County local Mikaela Shiffrin broke the news Monday morning that her father, Jeff Shiffrin, has died.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In a string of tweets posted to Twitter, Mikaela Shiffrin wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cMy 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 \u2026 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 \u2026 Thank you, from the depths of my heart, for respecting my family\u2019s privacy as we grieve during this unimaginable and devastating time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friend of the team<\/p>\n

In a news release, U.S. Ski & Snowboard CEO Tiger Shaw said Jeff Shiffrin was a good friend who will be terribly missed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur \u2014 and the entire ski world\u2019s \u2014 thoughts and prayers go out to his family during this incredibly difficult time,\u201d Shaw said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo sad for the loss to the Shiffrin family and our entire skiing community,\u201d Kelly wrote.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 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, \u2018Follow me,\u2019\u201d the article states. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avid photographer<\/p>\n

Jeff Shiffrin is remembered by journalists and the U.S. Ski Team as an avid photographer, often having traveled to Mikaela\u2019s World Cup races photographing her and other U.S. Ski Team athletes. During Mikaela\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always admired how he\u2019d hike the mountain to shoot the race with all the other photogs,\u201d wrote longtime ski sportscaster Steve Porino.<\/p>\n

In a post shared Monday, U.S. Ski & Snowboard wrote that Jeff was \u201crarely in a team picture on the podium because he was always behind the camera capturing the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, this is a job for her, and I try not to interfere,\u201d Jeff Shiffrin told the Vail Daily from Russia in 2014 during Mikaela\u2019s first Olympic appearance. \u201cIf she were to come visit me at work, I wouldn\u2019t change my routine just because she was there.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBC Sports Writer Tim Layden described Jeff as the perfect superstar athlete dad.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe taught and guided, shared and loved and when the lights got bright, he stepped aside,\u201d Layden wrote.<\/p>\n

Mikaela was quick to wish her father happy Father\u2019s Day or happy birthday \u2014 he would have turned 66 in March \u2014 and she also enjoyed recognizing him when he went out of his way to do something special for her. In 2016, Mikaela used the \u201clovemydad\u201d hashtag in a tweet about Jeff bringing a memory foam mattress pad to Europe so she could sleep more comfortably.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I am laying on a cloud,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Mikaela and Eileen returned from Europe on Sunday afternoon, and Jeff was surrounded by family and close friends during his final hours.<\/p>\n

This story contains material from a U.S. Ski & Snowboard press release.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US skier Mikaela Shiffrin posing with her parents after accepting the overall crystal globe award on Sunday on Aspen Mountain.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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1318049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 01:54:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1318049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1318049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1318049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1318049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}