Mikaela Shiffrin won gold in the giant slalom on Thursday, and she was perfectly open with reporters afterward about how she killed time between runs: She took a nap.
“I do it on every race,’’ she said according to USA Today. “There’s always a little bit of time between the first and the second run, and I think I had an hour today where I could sort of lie down for an hour on a bench in a corner of the lodge….”
Shiffrin, 22, said she just put on headphones that blocked out everything but her music and fell into a light sleep. “Sometimes I really fall asleep and when I wake up it feels like a new day and I have to, like, figure out where I am,’’ she said. “Sometimes it’s just more like I’m just trying not to think. Today I didn’t really fall asleep, but it was somewhere in between.”
The skier called her nap break “nice,” adding, “For me, that’s one of my favorite times during a race day is when I can like lie down and take a deep breath and get ready for the next run.’’ Shiffrin’s sleep habits have gotten a lot of attention, including a New York Times article on Friday that mentioned the skier is “renowned for needing at least nine hours of sleep a day.” The reality is, Shiffrin’s sleep habits are extremely healthy, but that didn’t stop fans from obsessing over them on Twitter.
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