Her story is a very unique one. It's been told so, so many times and I think that it's normally buffed up a bit. I think the article in the New Yorker is overall a good one, but not totally accurate.
Your observation is spot on. Mikaela's amazing success, which began at such a young age, has caused many. many issues in the ski racing world. Even with families and kids in "the best" programs, clubs and academies.
What I hear, very often, is that the "Mikaela Factor" has caused a lot of angst among those who have high aspirations for their daughters. Thing about it. Mikaela was racing a full NorAm schedule when she was old enough to have a FIS license. 15 in those days. Now it's 16. She was racing on the WC at 16, and winning at 17.
So you have parents who think that their daughters are not progressing fast enough, not hitting the same milestones, and who can be a complete handful for coaches. "But her age, Mikaela was........" Guess what, your child is killing it. There is one MS. She doesn't live in your house.
The way that she was trained has been chronicled a great deal, again with some editing. But the general headlines are a lot of drills, a lot of directed free skiing, solid intense training, very few {relatively speaking} race starts. Rest periods. Periodization. The proper nutrition, etc.
Once again, you have hands on parents who really don't want to let program directors and coaches do their job. They some in, loaded for bear, wanting to duplicate MS's program when she was younger.
Note that this does not touch on the many young women, roughly her age, and many a bit older who bailed on the sport with the famous words "This sucks, and I suck.....not fun."
We have the best female SL skier in history, and she is only 22. She may well be the best female tech skier ever, and may turn out to be the best skier, and winningest skier ever, period. She is amazing, she is bright, attractive, gracious. The whole package. An easy role model.
But the notion that you can develop your daughter to be the next MS is pretty crazy, other than perhaps for a handful of people in the country, a couple of whom perhaps might eventually end up on the USST.
What I hear is that there is a lot of road kill or collateral damage with this. It does not happen with young girls. It affects the fallout to some degree in the U14 years, and particularly the U16 years. By the time they are U19's and racing FIS, they should be aware of where they realistically will stand in that world. Not precisely, but probably not thinking they'll be on the WC in their first year, and winning in their second.
As many know, when you hop on this train, one of the more difficult things is eventually jumping off. If the child selects out, it makes it easy. It's costly, it takes a lot of energy, and the pinnacle at the top is small and narrow.
Having a parent on this full time, and a second very heavily involved is quite a commitment. Others have done it with very different results.
