American pre-Games favourite Mikaela Shiffrin questioned if she would stay at Beijing 2022 after failing to finish a second alpine skiing race in a row.
The 26-year-old double Olympic champion made another early mistake in the women’s slalom, two days after her shock exit from the giant slalom.
Asked if she would ski again at these Games, she replied: “I have some team-mates who are really fast and we have the athletes who can fill the spaces, so if I am going to ski out on the fifth gate, what’s the point?”
Shiffrin had come to Beijing planning to race in all five individual alpine events, with the next opportunity in Friday’s super G.
“I have never been in this position before and I don’t know how to handle it,” said Shiffrin, who had sat in disbelief at the side of the piste next to the netting with her skis off and head down.
“I just feel pretty low right now.”
The American’s rivals capitalised on her misfortune, with world number one Petra Vlhova of Slovakia putting in a superb second run to climb from eighth after the first run to claim the gold.
Austrian world champion Katharina Liensberger took silver and Swiss Wendy Holdener got the bronze.
Britain’s Charlie Guest, who had been 15th after the first run, finished 21st after a small error near the end of her second run cost her time.
Fellow Scot Alex Tilley failed to finish the first run after she missed a gate before the last section of the course.
‘I’ve never experienced this before’ – Shiffrin
Shiffrin best chances of gold at Beijing 2022 were expected to be in these two events that she has failed to finish.
“My plan was always to go full gas but I gave myself no space to make an error. I wanted it to feel really good and it did at the start gate but then that’s just the way racing goes I suppose,” Shiffrin told BBC Sport.
The four-time world slalom champion did not rush out of the venue, spending a long time working her way past the cameras and microphones of the world’s media and thoughtfully answering the many questions.
Asked what had been going through her mind when she sat for a long time at the side of the course, she replied: “It’s probably a culmination of the other day and today. It feels like a really big let down.
“It’s a let down of everything, letting down myself, letting down other people.
“We are not done yet but GS [giant slalom] and slalom, those were my biggest focuses. It really feels like a lot of work for nothing.
“They will try to say, ‘This happens and it’s OK, and don’t be too hard on yourself.’ But it is a lot of work for a grand total of five gates in the GS and five gates in the slalom. That’s not lost on me.”
The sight of Shiffrin slumped at the side of a course where she had been tipped to dominate drew sympathy from beyond her sport, with four-time Olympic champion gymnast Simone Biles among the first to tweet her support.
Biles’ own Tokyo 2020 experience did not go according to pre-Games public expectation when she withdrew from several individual events to look after her mental health.
Shiffrin said she did not think pressure was the biggest issue, pointing to nerves and the desire to do well, but she added: “Maybe I pushed a little over the limit. Maybe that’s because of the pressure. t’s probably better to ask some psychologist about that.”
Source: bbc
