They met for a walk but remained six feet apart — with masks on.
“I thought: This is a really awful way to start anything,” Shiffrin added. “But he was good with it; he was superchill. And you know, we had a good time.”
Months earlier, Kilde, who is a multiple gold medal contender at this month’s Beijing Olympics, had reached out remotely in a more affecting way. Cognizant that Shiffrin was still struggling with her grief over the 2020 accidental death of her father, Jeff Shiffrin, Kilde sent a note offering to listen if she wanted someone to talk to.
“I said, ‘You’re going to regret saying that,’” Shiffrin said. “But it spurred a conversation that hasn’t ended. And at some point, I said, ‘You know, you’re my boyfriend. We may have barely met but you’re my boyfriend.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, I am.’”
When the race season ended last spring, Kilde accompanied the Shiffrin family — Mikaela’s mother, Eileen, who is also her daughter’s coach; her older brother, Taylor; and his future wife, Kristi — on a beach vacation to Maui. The couple went public with their relationship in early summer, followed by social media posts of the pair cycling across the Brooklyn Bridge while in New York for the ESPYs.