WASHINGTON — American skiing and Winter Olympics star Mikaela Shiffrin kicked off her offseason with some big news: She and her longtime boyfriend Aleksander Aamodt Kilde are engaged.
The alpine skiing power couple made the announcement Wednesday in a joint post on their Instagram accounts. The post included a photo of the newly engaged couple together, along with a picture of Shiffrin holding out her ring finger to show off her new ring.
Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic champion, has become a well-known name worldwide, but many people who aren't avid skiing fans in the U.S. probably aren't as familiar with her now-fiancé, who is also a former overall World Cup champion skier.
Who is Mikaela Shiffrin's fiancé?
Shiffrin told Reuters in 2022 the pair first met seven years prior, but they didn't start dating until 2021 - when both were going through tough times. Shiffrin was making her return to racing following the death of her father, who died in Feb. 2020 after an accident at his home in Colorado. At the same time, Kilde was recovering from a bad knee injury.
"Last year he got in touch with me again with a really nice and supportive message to my family once I started racing again after my dad's accident and this time we just never stopped chatting," Shiffrin explained to Reuters.
It's been a challenging few months recently for the couple. Shiffrin and Kilde both crashed hard in downhill races in January and Shiffrin recently revealed the deep laceration Kilde suffered in his calf was “a life or death situation.”
The 29-year-old Shiffrin won nine of the 21 races she competed in this season, but had to concede the overall title after missing too many races when nursing her knee injury. She capped her injury-marred ski season with her record-extending 60th win in slalom and 97th overall at the World Cup finals.
Kilde, 31, is renowned as one of the strongest and hardest working ski racers, though he acknowledged shortly after his crash in January that his future is unclear as he recovers from his injuries.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
