Olympic love! Alpine Skier Mikaela Shiffrin is smitten with her boyfriend Mathieu Faivre.
In an exclusive video for Us Weekly, Shiffrin gushed all about her new beau and revealed why their relationship works even through their hectic schedules.“I have a boyfriend! Ah, sorry!,” she gushed to Us. “It is fun. He’s really cute.”
Being an Olympian is demanding, and Shiffrin says dating someone who isn’t an athlete is complicated and the fact that Faivre, 26, is an alpine ski racer helps. “I think it’s probably the easiest that it could be because I’m gone so much anyway,” she said. “Like, it doesn’t matter who I’m dating, I’m never gonna really see them. At least with him, we can work out together, we can ski together and kind of find ways to meet up.”
She added: “He understands. He’s the second best skier in the world so he gets the pressure, he gets the obligation and all of that.”
Since the couple live in different countries — she’s from Colorado and he lives in France — their date nights require booking a flight overseas. “I mean honestly we haven’t had that many dates, this is a very new fresh thing,” she told Us. “It just started this summer pretty much. So a typical date is like him flying to the U.S. or me flying to France and finding something to do for a few days, for like four days, and then it’s, like, ‘OK, bye. See you next time!’”
When it comes to date night, the skier likes to keep things simple. “Well, I love food, so date night is always including a really good dinner,” the 22-year-old told Us in September. “But I mean, my favorite things to do is like watch one of my TV shows — right now, it’s Blue Bloods.”
The gold medalist also had some words of wisdom for other young women like herself. “It may be sort of cliché but love yourself, find something in yourself that you love and grab onto that because people are going to be constantly giving you reasons to feel like you’re not good enough,” she shared with Us. “Even if they’re not purposely trying to. Just find the things in yourself that you love and play to your strengths because there’s always, always something.”
Shiffrin took home a gold medal after she won the Giant Slalom event on Wednesday, February 14, at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The American athlete placed first after coming in .39 seconds ahead of Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel. Italy’s Federica Brignone took home the bronze.
Shiffrin also won gold in the Ladies’ Slalom event at the in 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
