Shiffrin is heading to Europe later this month to compete in World Cup racesGETTY IMAGES
The family of Gold Medal-winning U.S. alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin "helped create a fund for winter sports athletes" in tribute to her father, Jeff Shiffrin, who passed away in February, according to Bill Pennington of the N.Y. TIMES. The Jeff Shiffrin Athlete Resiliency Fund, launched by U.S. Ski & Snowboard, is meant to "assist athletes in multiple sports whose training was cut short this year or whose travel expenses have skyrocketed." The fund was "started by six families with a history of making winter sports donations who offered to match contributions raised through the website" up to $1.5M. New safety guidelines and travel restrictions "have ballooned the cost of transporting roughly 175 American winter sports athletes around the globe." USS President & CEO Tiger Shaw said that coronavirus testing protocols alone "would add $1 million to his budget." A mandated quarantine for a single team arriving in Europe from the U.S. "might mean the added expense of housing and feeding 45 athletes and staff for 14 additional days." Adding to the "fiscal strain, the organization's biggest fund-raising events cannot be held as usual because of social distancing practices." Shiffrin said, "We don't want any of our athletes to feel at a disadvantage heading to the Olympics, which are coming up fast. We want the fund to bring awareness to how much resiliency is out there right now because everybody has conquered so much this year" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/21).
