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Mikaela Shiffrin arrived in Beijing anticipated to win a number of medals and cement her standing as one of the crucial adorned American skiers in historical past. However issues did not go to plan throughout the first week of competitors as she recorded two uncharacteristic “Did Not Finish” results in grand slalom and slalom, her greatest two races, and a ninth-place result in super-G.
She informed reporters on Monday she wasn’t going to think about medals anymore, and simply deal with her “greatest execution” in her remaining two races, beginning with Tuesday’s downhill competitors.
Regardless of the change of mentality, the consequence was extra of the identical for the 26-year outdated American. Competing twelfth in a area of 36, in windy situations and frigid temperatures, Shiffrin’s time of 1:34.36 was the Eleventh-best consequence on the time of her completion.
By the point the occasion concluded, she had fallen to 18th place and was 2.49 seconds behind gold-medalist Corinne Suter of Switzerland. Sofia Goggia and Nadia Delago, each of Italy, earned the silver and bronze.
Nonetheless, in contrast to a few of the devastating scenes from her earlier races, Shiffrin smiled and waved to the digital camera after finishing the course and remained by the end line because the remaining skiers competed, even posing for footage with fellow opponents.
“As soon as once more right now, it was tremendous enjoyable,” Shiffrin mentioned in a post-race interview on NBC. “The speeds are positively somewhat bit up and there is a bit extra wind taking part in round so some spots you get a tailwind, some spots you get wind into your face. I have never skilled that a lot in downhill so I used to be somewhat bit like, ‘What do I do with this?’ However I nonetheless felt robust with my snowboarding. In fact my technical snowboarding feels fairly on level, and once more it is one other day of actually good expertise.”
It was Shiffrin’s Olympic debut within the occasion and her first time competing in a downhill race since December. However she had felt assured throughout her coaching runs over the previous few days and had mentioned she was excited to have the chance to race the occasion.
Shiffrin was one of the crucial seen and recognizable athletes at first of the Video games and there was a lot dialogue from followers and people across the sport about her capacity to win the third gold medal of her profession, which might be essentially the most by an American alpine skier in Olympic historical past. One other podium look of any variety would tie her with Julia Mancuso for essentially the most medals by an American lady within the sport. She knew the expectations surrounding her and has been candid about her struggles throughout these Olympics.
An interview following her super-G race went viral as she mentioned the outpouring of assist she had obtained.
“I might by no means have anticipated to really feel on this second — severely underperforming in an Olympics — I might by no means have felt that people might be so variety,” she mentioned. “I by no means would’ve anticipated that essentially the most stunning factor of my Olympic expertise is how variety folks have been within the face of my failure. I imply, it’s failure. It is OK to say that. I’m OK with that and I am sorry for it, however I additionally was attempting and I am pleased with that.”
Shiffrin nonetheless could have another shot to win a medal at these Video games in Thursday’s mixed race, which features a downhill run and a slalom run. She earned silver within the occasion in 2018 and can be capable of use her expertise from Tuesday’s downhill competitors within the occasion.
Following the downhill race, she mentioned she was feeling upbeat heading into Thursday’s occasion.
“We’ll see,” Shiffrin mentioned on the published. “There’s a few girls who’ve a extremely good shot for robust downhill runs after which additionally actually robust slalom runs so I do not really feel that something is assured. Under no circumstances, particularly not after the final couple of weeks however I believe I’ve a shot in order that’s very nice. I will go for it and we’ll see.”
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