Mikaela Shiffrin admitted she felt like a “joke” after failing to finish her third event at the Beijing Olympic Games on Thursday when she skied out during the slalom portion of the women’s combined event.
Shiffrin, who has won more World Cup slalom races than any other skier in history, arrived in China targeting five medals but crashed out of both the slalom and giant-slalom and finished 18th in the women’s downhill.
“Right now, I just feel like a joke,” said Shriffin, who said she was baffled about her inability to finish in three events at the Games, given her previous exemplary record when it comes to getting over the line.
“Sixty per cent of my DNF rate for my entire career has happened at this Olympic Games,” said Shiffrin, whose only chance of redemption in Beijing now lies in the forthcoming team event.
“I should probably just quit,” she added. “But I’m going to go out and practise the team event.
“People want to say it’s a pressure thing. There are certainly points during the Games where I felt the weight of pressure and expectations. But in general, when I was racing, it wasn’t the case that that was something outrageous.
“Today I felt like I had a pretty calm, solid mentality, nothing too crazy. Of course I wanted to win a medal, but before that I just wanted to take the opportunity to ski another run of slalom on this hill.
“The most disappointing thing, beyond walking away from the Games with no individual medals, is that I had multiple opportunities to ski slalom on this track, and I failed in all of them.”
Shiffrin had looked set for a medal after finishing fifth in the morning’s downhill portion of the event, only 0.56 seconds off the lead.
But her failure in slalom allowed Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin in to retain her Olympic combined title, 1.05 seconds in front of compatriot Wendy Holdener, with Federica Brignone of Italy claiming bronze.
