Mikaela Shiffrin: American wins giant slalom gold but withdraws from Super-G

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Mikaela Shiffrin won the second Olympic gold of her career with victory in the giant slalom.

MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/AFP/Getty Pictures

Mikaela Shiffrin received the second Olympic gold of her profession with victory within the large slalom.

Story highlights

Shiffrin provides large slalom title to slalom gold from Sochi

American focusing on a number of golds in Pyeongchang

She is going to race once more in slalom Friday



CNN
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For Mikaela Shiffrin, it was well worth the wait.

The American’s quest for Olympic glory lastly received beneath manner after days of climate delays and the 22-year-old did as was anticipated, profitable gold within the ladies’s large slalom.

It was her second Olympic title after confirming her precocious expertise by turning into the youngest Olympic slalom – at 18 – in Sochi 4 years in the past.

Forward of the Video games there was hypothesis the gifted all-rounder may goal 5 golds in Pyeongchang, however hours after her win, Shiffrin’s mom and coach, Eileen, confirmed to CNN that her daughter wouldn’t be competing in Saturday’s super-G.

The compressed scheduled pressured by the excessive winds earlier within the week – the large slalom was initially set for Monday – means the three-time world champion will as an alternative put together for subsequent week’s downhill and alpine mixed occasions.

Shiffrin will race once more in her favored slalom occasion Friday as she bids to equal or higher Croatian Janica Kostelic’s 2002 file of three golds at a single Video games.

READ: Winter Olympics day 6: As it happened

READ: Mikaela Shiffrin – how to train an Olympic champion

Mikaela Shiffrin was in blistering form when the weather cleared in Pyeongchang.

Alexis Boichard/Agence Zoom/Getty Pictures AsiaPac/Getty Pictures

Mikaela Shiffrin was in blistering type when the climate cleared in Pyeongchang.

Hailed a “phenom” even earlier than profitable her first Winter Olympic gold, Shriffin may but change into the primary Alpine skier to win greater than 4 Olympic gold medals in a profession.

Kostelic and males’s nice Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway each ended their careers with 4 golds.

Earlier than the announcement of Shiffrin’s super-G withdrawal, her coach Mike Day stated the climate delays had made her bid for 5 golds tough.

“It’s unlucky. It’s an out of doors sport and we received hit arduous by the climate,” he informed CNN’s Christina Macfarlane.

READ: Aksel Lund Svindal becomes oldest Olympic skiing champion

After profitable gold to change into solely the third American Alpine skier to win two Olympic golds, becoming a member of Andrea Mead-Lawrence and Ted Ligety, Shiffrin admitted that the weather-hit delays had been “mentally taxing.”

“By the tip of those couple of weeks I’m going to really feel that, even when we had these first two races go the best way they need to,” she stated.

“It’s mentally difficult to get excited for a race after which have it canceled. It’s not straightforward.”

However Shiffrin is a “standout due to her psychological toughness,” her coach Jeff Lackie told CNN, and he or she surged from second after run one to beat Norwegian Ragnhild Mowinckel by 0.39 seconds with Italian Federica Brignone in third.

“It’s probably not aid,” Shiffrin informed reporters. “It was an incredible feeling. My finest effort is nice sufficient and I’ve an Olympic gold.

“The second run, I liked how the course seemed and I simply thought ‘I’ve received to go.’ Everyone’s snowboarding to win and it left me no selection however to do the identical.

“This morning I wakened and didn’t really feel significantly nervous. I used to be in a position to eat my breakfast, which usually on race day I’m not in a position to do. I had moments once I was nervous, I had moments once I felt strain. On the beginning gate I assumed ‘simply go for it.’”

In an try and ease the strain of expectation, Shiffrin informed reporters she had not been on social media for a few weeks.

“I don’t assume anyone places as massive an expectations on me as I do myself,” she stated.

“I’ve not been on Twitter, Instagram, Fb for 2 weeks. If I need to submit one thing I inform my agent that is what I need to say.

“I haven’t been taking a look at what persons are saying or watching. I’ve actually been away from {that a} bit and that helps rather a lot as a result of if I don’t see it I don’t know what persons are saying.”

Throughout the first run, Shriffin wasn’t the one competitor attracting consideration on the Yongpyong Alpine Heart.

North Korea’s all-female cheerleading squad, wearing matching pink snowsuits and bobble hats, had been in full voice to help North Korea’s entry, 25-year-old Kim Ryon Hyang, who completed final.

Becoming a member of the squad of their singing and chants was a bunch of about 50 unification supporters sporting hoodies with a silhouette of a unified Korean peninsula.

The unification group, primarily younger people who find themselves from numerous cities in South Korea, had realized that the cheerleaders could be current by means of native media and determined to attend the occasion.

Huh Jung-bin, 22, from Busan, South Korea’s second-most populous metropolis, stated they had been on the Alpine Heart to help the cheerleaders and unification of the North and South, two international locations nonetheless technically at battle.

All through the competitors, the 2 teams, sitting in separate sections, sang in unison, and waved flags of unified Korea which have been so acquainted at these Video games.



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