By land and by sea, skier Mikaela Shiffrin and swimmer Missy Franklin rule the Olympic Games. They are Colorado teenagers, born less than two months apart in 1995. They are audacious and precocious. As a tag team that doesn't quit from summer to winter, Franklin and Shiffrin have come roaring out of the Rocky Mountains to win five gold medals.

Look out, world.

Missy and Mikaela are just getting warmed up.

"They can be effective spokespeople not only for their sport, but the entire Olympic movement," said Scott Blackmun, chief executive officer of the United States Olympic Committee.

Shiffrin and Franklin are America's golden girls. They have gone from the ski town of Eagle-Vail and the quiet suburb of Centennial to front and center on televisions across the United States, where nothing scores bigger points with the audience than winning.

"There is nothing that can stop me from reaching my dreams, because I am in control of how hard I work and how badly I want something," Franklin said from California, where she cheered when Shiffrin won the slalom with a heart-stopping run in the mountains of Russia.

"Competing at a level like the Olympics at such a young age is the best place to have a no-limit attitude, because you have so much left to experience in your sports career, and you just get to go out there and enjoy racing the best competition in the world, while learning as much as you can. Watching Mikaela go out and ski like that was so inspiring, because you could literally see this attitude as she was skiing. She never set limits on herself, and it was beautiful to watch."

Shiffrin and Franklin have become the MVPs of the USOC. The reason? Their no-limit attitude. And here's why it's so valuable: In a country where TV ratings and corporate sponsorships are the lifeblood of the Olympic movement, Shiffrin and Franklin do more than bleed red, white and blue. They win gold and attract green. Medals mean dollars. Success breeds success.

In the sports of swimming and skiing, they have become single-name superstars: Missy and Mikaela.

"We talked on Twitter. We exchanged some direct messages. She was really supportive, and I really appreciated it," Shiffrin said, "because people kept saying I'm the Missy Franklin of skiing, and that's a tough thing to live up to."

As the Winter Games came to a close Sunday night in Sochi, the home team clinched the top spot on the leaderboard for the medal count. Russia finished with 33, five more than the United States.

The established stars for Team USA fell down, from snowboarder Shaun White to speedskater Shani Davis. After a record-setting performance four years ago in Vancouver, it sometimes felt as if the best offered by American athletes in Russia were excuses for coming up short. But on the final weekend of the Games, a new star was born in Shiffrin.

Move over, Peyton Manning. The stars from Colorado who deliver when it counts most are Mikaela and Missy. They're MMgood.

Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin, at the women&#8217;s slalom medals ceremony Saturday, said she came to the Sochi Games &quot;to paint my own
Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin, at the women's slalom medals ceremony Saturday, said she came to the Sochi Games "to paint my own miracle."

The Broncos got to the big stage, and tripped, losing 43-8 to Seattle in the Super Bowl. Although Shiffrin has won the World Cup overall title and the world championship in slalom, at the one ski race that attracts millions of eyeballs in America, she came up big.

"The Olympics," Shiffrin said, "is the one race that really means a lot to me and everybody else."

The same as some of the richest NBA stars, Shiffrin turned pro as a teen, inking deals with Oakley and Procter & Gamble. If she follows the tracks of fellow Colorado skier Lindsey Vonn, a gold medal at the Winter Games could be worth $3 million per year.

After winning four gold medals and a bronze at the 2012 Summer Games in London, Franklin has taken a different path, happily enduring the tough swim practices and tougher classes at Cal.

"It's OK to say 'I'm going for gold,' " said Shiffrin, who made no secret she wanted to seize the Winter Games as an opportunity to build her brand. Skiing is her passion and her business.

Her big, unabashed ambition to win a truckload of medals during a long Olympic career might be jarring to the ears of sports chauvinists who are nostalgic for the 1950s, when women didn't sweat, they glowed. Shiffrin, however, is not satisfied to remain a poor, humble amateur who sits quietly on the sideline while a male superstar such as LeBron James signs lucrative endorsement deals and boldly vows to hoard as many championships as he can. What's good for the goose ...

"Female athletes from Colorado kick butt because we come from the best state in the whole country, and have the most incredible support from the entire state. Once a Coloradan, always a Coloradan!" Franklin said. "There are no words to describe standing on the podium with an Olympic medal on your neck and singing your national anthem as the flag is raised. You realize what you accomplished is so much bigger than yourself. For me, it felt like a small step in saying thank you to a country that gives me freedom every day."

For the next four years and beyond, from Brazil for the Summer Games of 2016 to South Korea for the Winter Games in 2018, the future of the Olympics in the United States appears to be pure gold.

The best reasons for optimism can be defined in just two names:

Mikaela and Missy.

Mark Kiszla: or