{"id":1318323,"date":"2020-02-19T17:38:44","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T00:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/?p=473427"},"modified":"2020-02-20T07:48:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T14:48:00","slug":"walsh-wins-world-cup-gs-salutes-shiffrin-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/walsh-wins-world-cup-gs-salutes-shiffrin-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Walsh wins World Cup GS; salutes Shiffrin family"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Vail’s Thomas Walsh wins Wednesday’s Para Alpine Skiing World Cup giant slalom in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, and dedicates to the victory to the late Jeff Shiffrin and his family.<\/strong>
Special to the Daily<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Vail\u2019s Thomas Walsh won Wednesday\u2019s Para Alpine Skiing World Cup giant slalom in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, and dedicated the victory to Jeff Shiffrin, who passed away earlier this month.<\/a><\/p>\n

Walsh, a cancer survivor, and Mikela Shiffrin grew up together skiing and have been close friends throughout the years.<\/p>\n

Walsh, wearing \u201cBe Nice. Think first. Have fun,\u201d Jeff\u2019s words by which to live, taped to the front of his helmet, posted on Twitter after his win.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

\u201cJeff Shiffrin, who passed away, a really good friend of mine, I owe a lot to him, helping me continue to live and continue to ski race,\u201d Walsh said in his video tweet. \u201cI just want to give a shoutout to the entire Shiffrin family, Mikaela, Taylor, Eileen and all the extended family. I\u2019ve been thinking about Jeff. I\u2019ve had this on my helmet every day. He was definitely with me as I won this GS.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Walsh was 14, he was diagnosed with Ewing\u2019s sarcoma. He completed his radiation treatment in 2010. In the process of fighting the disease, he had parts of his lung and pelvis removed.<\/p>\n

Having skied with Shiffrin in then-Ski Club Vail, Walsh and the Shiffrin family stayed close through his trials and travails.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has that kind of \u2018zest-for-life\u2019 that is very rare, very contagious, and cannot be stifled. Not even by cancer,\u201d Shiffrin told The Associated Press last spring.<\/a> \u201cThomas was always a much better athlete than I was. He was literally good at everything. I mean, everything. Skiing, soccer, a triathlon, dancing, acting, singing, school \u2014 you name it. He did it all and he was always the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walsh has gone on to make the U.S. Paralympics Alpine Skiing National Team. Walsh finished fifth at the Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018. He won two bronze medals at the 2019 World Para Alpine Skiing Championships in Italy.<\/a><\/p>\n

And Wednesday, he won by 0.21 seconds over Arthur Bauchet in the giant slalom. With the victory came a heartfelt message to Jeff and the Shiffrin family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one of the messages I carry in my heart,\u201d Walsh said on Twitter. \u201cI find myself in debt to people who helped me overcome my cancer treatment and continue to support me while living with a disability. Jeff was one of the most influential people (to help) me do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Vail’s Thomas Walsh wins Wednesday’s Para Alpine Skiing World Cup giant slalom in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, and dedicates to the victory to the late Jeff Shiffrin and his family.Special to the Daily Vail\u2019s Thomas Walsh won Wednesday\u2019s Para Alpine Skiing World Cup giant slalom in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, and dedicated the victory to Jeff Shiffrin, who passed […]<\/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-1318323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-05 17:54:38","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\/1318323","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=1318323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318338,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318323\/revisions\/1318338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1318323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1318323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1318323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}