Mikaela Shiffrin entered Monday’s giant slalom looking to start her quest to become the most decorated Alpine skier of all time.
Her first run, however, ended in disaster.
In the American skiing star’s first action of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Shiffrin crashed off course and was disqualified from the competition. She was the reigning champion, claiming gold in 2018, and leads this season’s World Cup standings in the discipline.
In the first of what would have been two runs, she slipped down on her hip coming around a left turn and missed an early gate resulting in her disqualification.
“I was attacking, and just a small mistiming of, kind of when I set my edges and just slipped out,” Shiffrin told NBC. “It’s an amazing surface, it’s such amazing conditions, but you don’t have any room for some small errors or anything like that. I was pushing, so I’m really happy with that, but five gates into the course, that stinks.”
It was the first time Shiffrin has “skied out” since Jan. 23, 2018 — 30 giant slalom races ago. NBC flashed footage of Shiffrin’s family watching at home in disbelief as she shockingly failed to keep her balance.
Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States misses the final in the women’s giant slalom AP (2), Getty (2)“It’s hard not to dwell,” Shiffrin said when asked how to move forward at these Games, where she could compete in four more events. “Especially for me, I’m always dwelling on these kind of heart-breaking days. But I just cannot afford to spend or waste energy on something that is now in the past. It could’ve been a really beautiful day to be doing some good GS [giant slalom] racing, and that’s not the path I’m taking anymore this Olympics.”
The 26-year-old entered the giant slalom as a heavy favorite, and was looking to become the first American ski racer to win three gold medals in one Games. In 2014, Shiffrin became the youngest ever to win gold in slalom. Four years later, she brought home her gold in giant slalom in addition to silver in Alpine combined.
Shiffrin took over the sport and became the youngest skier, male or female, to reach 50 World Cup victories. She was the first athlete in World Cup history to win all six disciplines, and has won the World Cup slalom championship six times.
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Shiffrin was scheduled to compete in all five women’s skiing events, so she still has four opportunities — slalom, super-G, downhill and combined — to make American skiing history. In addition to slalom, she will be a heavy favorite in combined as well, coming off her 2021 world championship and 2018 silver medal.
She next competes Wednesday in the slalom.
“Going to reset, focus on what I can control for the slalom, but still a long two weeks to go and I’m still looking forward to it,” she told NBC. “I’m sorry that that was the performance I did today, but that also happens and, well, I want to hide the disappointment but I also I’m not going to dwell on that because that’s not going to help me at all.”
