Mixed-team disappointment means the Olympics are over for Mikaela Shiffrin without a medal.
When does Mikaela Shiffrin Ski Next
U.S. team member Mikaela Shiffrin will return home from the Beijing Winter Games without a medal after the Americans finished fourth in the mixed team parallel on Sunday.
The 26-year-old American, the team’s main draw along with River Radamus, Paula Moltzan, and Tommy Ford, came close to a redemption bronze medal after beating a Slovakian team missing star Petra Vlhova in their opening match and then shocking Italy in the medal round.
However, Germany eliminated the United States from medal contention in the semi-finals, and the Americans lost the bronze-medal match against Norway on a tiebreaker.
Gold went to the top-seeded Austrian team, and silver went to the second-placed Germans in the inaugural mixed-gender team event at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2014.
After finishing no better than ninth in five individual races and failing to cross the finish line entirely in three of them, Shiffrin’s only chance at a medal was the knockout competition, a result that would have been unthinkable a fortnight ago when the three-time overall World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist arrived with designs on Janica Kostelic’s women’s record of four medals at a single Winter Games.
Saying, “I am not disappointed,” Shiffrin emphasised her optimism. I’ve been very let down by a number of things that have happened during these games. And today isn’t like any of those days; in fact, it’s my all-time favourite recollection.
Skiing with such Capable Colleagues was the Finest Possible way to Round out the Olympic Experience for me.
After being delayed a day due to high winds, the final alpine skiing event of the Beijing Olympics finally got underway on Sunday morning.
Unfortunately for Shiffrin, the course she would be competing on—Ice River—has been nothing but a nightmare for her throughout these Olympic Games.
She skied out three times in the technical races that form the basis of her supremacy, the slalom, the giant slalom, and the slalom section of the alpine combined, and so did not reach the finish line in any of them prior to Sunday’s finale.
The Americans were seeded sixth in the tournament’s bracket format, which featured four heats of competition between pairs of men and women on neighbouring courses.
If both teams have the same number of wins, the team with the most wins advances to the next round;
if both teams have the same number of losses, the team with the lowest combined time of its fastest man and fastest woman wins.
The competitors acknowledge that the route is easier and the stakes are lower because most of Sunday’s runs lasted only 25 seconds.
Shiffrin’s career existence has been marked by dizzying highs and lows, but there’s no denying that a medal would have helped ease her pain during the low point.
In the midst of another morning of heavy gusts and sub-zero temperatures on the south side of Xiaohaituo Mountain, Shiffrin performed four clean runs down the shortened giant slalom course.
Her first race, which she led from start to finish and won to help the U.S. progress over Slovakia, was on the faster blue course, but she was placed on the red course for the remaining three races and lost all of them.
Shiffrin had to reschedule her trip to Switzerland for next week’s World Cup events because of the full-day postponement caused by Saturday’s about 65kph (40mph) winds at the top of the course.
The American, however, deemed the sacrifice worthwhile in order to share a memorable Olympic moment with her teammates.
Shiffrin, who is chasing a fourth overall World Cup crystal globe, said, “Twenty-four hours makes a pretty big difference when I think about my individual goals, my personal goals, for the rest of the season.”
The fact that you’re still exerting yourself after 24 hours does make a difference, people thought.
The desire to compete with my colleagues was a major factor in my decision to remain. I simply can’t see myself ever leaving. Many times throughout my career, I’ve had to put my own needs ahead of those of the team or organisation in order to achieve my objectives.
To which She Elaborated, “Today it was only Vital for us to be able to Compete together.
What’s more, they’ve cheered me on throughout the Olympics, which is fantastic. All they need to know is that I love them and that I wanted to give back and give myself a shot at a medal today.
Shiffrin went from being a juvenile prodigy to the best all-around skier in the world after she won the Olympic slalom at the Sochi Games at the youngest age ever. She also became the first skier, male or female, to win World Cup races in all six disciplines.
She has won three Olympic medals, two of them gold, in slalom (2014) and giant slalom (2018), and she is third all-time in World Cup race wins with 73 victories, behind only Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark (86) and her US teammate Lindsey Vonn (82).
With Ryan Cochran-unexpected Siegle’s silver in the super-G, the United States alpine skiing team left Beijing with just one medal out of a possible 30 in individual races.
That’s tied for the country’s lowest Olympic medal total since 1998, when Picabo Street won the super-G event gold in Nagano.
