Aleksander Aamodt Kilde has stared down the Streif in Kitzbühel at 140 km/h with broken bindings, raced with a half-healed shoulder, and won World Cup downhills by hundredths of a second. But nothing, he says, has ever made his heart pound like the moment he asked Mikaela Shiffrin to marry him.
In a candid interview released Wednesday on the Norwegian podcast “I det lange løp,” the 33-year-old speed star finally opened up about the proposal that took place last April in the Dolomites, an event the couple had kept almost entirely private until now.
“Downhill starts? Scary, yes. But you train for that. You know the course,” Kilde said, laughing nervously even in retrospect. “Proposing to Mikaela? There is no training plan. There is no second run. I was more nervous than any race in my life, by far.”
According to Kilde, he carried the ring in his jacket pocket for three days while the couple hiked and climbed together near Sesto, waiting for the perfect moment that never quite felt perfect enough.
“I kept thinking, ‘Is this spot romantic enough? Is the light right? What if she says no?’” he admitted. “I was sweating more than after a Beaver Creek training run in July.”
Finally, on a quiet ridge with panoramic views of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo at sunset, he dropped to one knee. Shiffrin, caught completely off guard, burst into tears before he could finish the question.
“She said yes so fast I almost forgot to put the ring on,” Kilde recalled, grinning. “Best victory of my career, no podium comes close.”
The couple announced their engagement in early May with a simple Instagram post, but this is the first time either has shared details. Shiffrin, who was listening off-mic during the interview, could be heard laughing and calling out, “You were shaking!” as Kilde described the moment.
Kilde and Shiffrin, alpine skiing’s undisputed power couple, have been together since 2021. They now split time between Kilde’s native Norway, Shiffrin’s base in Austria, and Shiffrin’s childhood home in Colorado.
Asked if wedding plans are underway, Kilde smiled and said only, “We’re skiers, we like going fast… but this one we’re taking turn by turn.”
For a man who has 21 World Cup downhill and super-G wins, one of the few things that can still leave him speechless is apparently the woman who has 97 victories of her own.
