Mikaela Shiffrin had every reason to look forward to the 2022 Olympics.
Already the owner of three Olympic medals (and numerous World Cup victories) the alpine skiing champion was set to compete in several downhill races at the Beijing games – and expected to medal in many of them.
Then something shocking occurred.
She skied out of her first two events – one just a few gates in – and instantly became the newest face of epic Olympic disappointment.
“This makes me second-guess, like, the last 15 years, everything I thought I knew about my own skiing, in slalom, and my own racing mentality,” a devastated Shiffrin told reporters afterwards.
Thankfully for her, that wasn’t the end of the story, because even while she was still sitting on that mountain trying to make sense out of what had just happened, famous athletes and other people from all over the world started to reach out to her with words of comfort and encouragement, reminding her to hold her head high and telling her she was loved and supported.
“I would never have expected to feel in this moment, severely underperforming in an Olympics, I would never have felt that humans could be so kind,” she said of the support, adding, “It’s the most surprising thing of my Olympic experience, is how kind people have been in the face of my failure.”
Here at ALAN, we’re anything but surprised. Over the past 16 years, we’ve learned a lot about just how kind people can be – and what a life-changing difference it can make.
We’ve seen that kindness in the faces of truck drivers who have showed up to pick up and deliver compassionate loads. We’ve heard it in the voices of our association partners who often call after a disaster saying, “What can I do to help?” And we’ve felt it each time a member of our industry has said yes to an ALAN request to donate a piece of material handling equipment, some much-needed warehouse space or the funds we require to continue “saving lives through logistics.”
It’s why you’ll often see us with a smile on our face if you happen to run into us at industry events – and why many ALAN team members often appear to be so cheerful and light-hearted.
We know that even though bad things happen, good people will always be there to show up and remind us of just how wonderful human beings really can be.
And that’s a knowledge that’s worth its weight in gold – and silver.
Kathy Fulton
Executive Director
American Logistics Aid Network
