Mikaela Shiffrin, the greatest female alpine skier of all time, suffered yet more Winter Olympic heartbreak as she kickstarted her games on Tuesday.
Shiffrin, combined with freshly-crowned Olympic downhill champion Breezy Johnson, had been widely expected to be unequivocal favorites to capture gold for Team USA in the women’s team combined event in Milan-Cortina.
However, Shiffrin’s slalom run shocking saw the American power duo plummet out of medal contention, seeing them leave the slopes empty handed.
Her teammate, Johnson, who clinched gold in the women’s downhill following Lindsey Vonn’s horror crash on Sunday, had placed Shiffrin in perfect position with a first-run lead in the downhill.
But Shiffrin, the most successful World Cup racer of all time, squandered Johnson’s lead when she took over in the slalom.
In a tense run, Shiffrin’s time saw she and Johnson tumble from first down to fourth, costing them not only the gold but a medal altogether.
Mikaela Shiffrin, the greatest female alpine skier of all time, suffered more Olympic heartbreak
The result saw Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber of Austria take home gold and Germany’s Kira Weidle-Winkelmann and Emma Aicher earn silver.
It wasn’t all misery for the US, however, as the other American pairing, Paula Moltzan and Jacqueline Wiles, clinched bronze.
The team combined consists of one racer competing in a downhill run and another in a slalom run, with the times from the two added together to determine the results.
Shiffrin lost time to the leaders at every checkpoint and crossed 0.31 seconds behind – missing a medal by finishing 0.06 behind the other American team. In the finish area, Johnson – who was coming off a gold in the individual downhill – embraced Shiffrin, while the Austrians and other podium finishers began celebrating.
Shiffrin, who has a record 108 victories – 71 of them in slalom, also a record – has now gone seven straight Olympic races without a medal.
After taking two golds and silver from her first two Olympics, Shiffrin also didn´t win a medal in any of her six races at the Beijing Games four years ago.
More to follow.
