09 February 2022

America’s Mikaela Shiffrin crashes out of slalom after nightmare Olympics run

09 February 2022

Mikaela Shiffrin’s Winter Olympics nightmare continued as she crashed out of the women’s slalom at Yanqing on Wednesday.

The 26-year-old US star missed a gate early in her run, two days after she suffered a similar fate in the women’s giant-slalom.

Shiffrin, the overall World Cup leader who boasts 73 all-time alpine World Cup wins, had arrived in China targeting medals in five events.

Mikaela Shiffrin skied out on her first slalom run (Robert F Bukaty/AP) (AP)

Shiffrin said: “I was pushing out of the start. I had full intentions of skiing as hard as I could.

“I slipped up a little bit on one turn and I just didn’t give myself room to make any kind of error like that. I was planning to go on the most aggressive line, the most challenging line to ski.

“(I feel) pretty awful. But it won’t last for ever. I just feel pretty low right now.”

Prior to her giant-slalom setback, Shiffrin had failed to finish a race only twice in four years, and only 13 times in her 228-career World Cup starts.

Shiffrin, who sat by the side of the course for some time after her disqualification, still has a chance to become the first US skier to win three gold medals at the same Games.

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