Mikaela Shiffrin came in second in Thursday’s International Ski Federation World Cup slalom in Courchevel, France. She’s always a threat to win it.

Shiffrin has won seven season-long titles in that discipline, more than any woman. She has won 55 World Cup slalom races, more than any skier of either gender. She has been and is and will be a force.

Covering Shiffrin for the past decade has meant delving deep into her emotions and anxieties. For an elite athlete with an international profile, she is uncommonly open and honest about her state of mind, including her insecurities.

But it occurs to me that in all that amateur psychology, something is at least overlooked if not all but lost: the physical brilliance and beauty of her skiing.

“She has this amazing technical ability that in a lot of ways takes the mental side of it somewhat out,” said Ted Ligety, an Olympic gold medalist and World Cup discipline champion in giant slalom who does some race commentary for NBC. “It makes it easier mentally when your skiing is so stable and so technically proficient that you don’t have to come up with these crazy performances.”

Appreciating Shiffrin’s superiority is informed by watching her run in any race — particularly slalom, her specialty. She is so still and stable in her upper body, and her feet move so quickly as she links turns together. This is apparent when watching her compete. It’s stark when cast against most of her competitors. Shiffrin’s best skiing is so smooth it looks almost easy.

“For me, it’s a fairly specific feeling of kind of connection of turns,” she said by phone toward the end of last season. “If I connect my turns properly, that comes down to technical movement and physical strength and the tactics you take and the line you take on the course — all those things — that all has to be super-precise.

“But when I get that right, I can feel the power of the turn. And it’s a very different feeling. It’s really hard to do.… It’s not something that’s fully visible to most people watching, but it’s a drastically different feeling. And it’s one of the feelings that’s like the hardest to repeat.”

Her pursuit of that feeling is lifelong, and it’s grounded in her upbringing. Shiffrin’s first coach was her mother Eileen, and when she arrived on the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association national team, Eileen came with her. With a brief exception, she has been part of her coaching staff since — meaning there is an ingrained consistency in her style.

“At some point, her mom knows her daughter better than her daughter knows herself,” said Resi Stiegler, a retired American racer who was a veteran when Shiffrin joined the U.S. Alpine team. “It was such an advantage for her to have someone who could say, ‘You know what? We’re only going to train four runs today,’ because she had such a feel for her daughter and what was necessary that day.”

Ligety first met Shiffrin when she was in her middle teens and was joining the best American skiers for an offseason training camp in New Zealand. The qualities that define her skiing now were apparent back then in an athlete who would make her first World Cup start at 15 and claim the first of her record 91 World Cup wins at 17. She was meticulous in her training. There was zero wasted energy, no lazy turns. Every drill, every run, was performed with a purpose.

Package that with pure talent, and the potential was apparent.

“You could see it right away: That technical ability and the stability in her skiing — a level of stability that is rarely seen,” Ligety said. “That means if it’s rough or bumpy or all kinds of variable conditions, it looks the same no matter what. It can be bumpy, but it looks like she is skiing down a normal course.”

The result is remarkably consistent results on the World Cup circuit. Headed into Thursday’s slalom in Courchevel, France, Shiffrin has placed on the podium in 11 of her past 12 slalom races, including six wins. The one time she missed the top three, she was fourth.

But she is far from a slalom specialist anymore. After beginning the season with a sixth-place finish in giant slalom and a fourth in slalom, she has won two slaloms and a downhill, reached the podium in three straight giant slaloms and finished fourth in a super-G before failing to finish the most recent race, a super-G last week in France.

In 259 World Cup starts across her career, she has reached the podium more than 55% of the time. With a record 91 victories across all disciplines, her winning percentage — not a normal skiing statistic, but one that applies to Shiffrin — is 35%.

With 55 victories in 100 World Cup slalom starts, she is a safer bet to win than not in her best event. That’s staggering.