‘I feel like a joke’: Mikaela Shiffrin’s Winter Olympics from hell continues

Two-time Olympic gold medallist Mikaela Shiffrin’s worst nightmare has continued as the skiing superstar repeated history once again.

Mikaela Shiffrin’s individual 2022 Olympics ended the way they started.

And the American star saw the unfortunate ending coming.

With a gold medal within reach after a strong downhill run, Shiffrin crashed early on in her slalom run in the women’s alpine combined.

The competition represented the last of five individual medal opportunities for Shiffrin, who now ends her third Olympic campaign still one gold medal short of the American alpine skiing record.

Shiffrin, the reigning silver medallist in the event, lasted just a few seconds, skidding around 12 gates into her run, a portion of the race called a flush.

She wasn’t alone, at least, as eight other skiers failed to finish their race amid Olympic-wide complaints about surfaces and skiing conditions.

She crashed and failed to finish her first two Olympic competitions, which are considered her best — the slalom and giant slalom. She was able to finish ninth in super-G and 18th in downhill, but clearly was not performing at her normal level.

“I think there was a lot of positive,” Shiffrin told NBC after her crash. “A lot of positive even just in my skiing. I had some really great runs — like some of the best skiing I’ve ever done, here in Beijing, in the training, in the downhill over the last week, in my slalom even today, and on the race in the moment when it counts, then I didn’t make it to the finish.

“And that’s never happened in my entire career, so I don’t understand it, but there was so much positive that has happened in the last couple of weeks despite how much it really stinks. I don’t know, sometimes you have to take it. I don’t know, you just have to take it, I guess.”

Mikaela Shiffrin has had a shocker. Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

In another interview, she said: “I wanted to ski just a good run of slalom, and I don’t know. I feel like a joke. I don’t know if anybody’s failed that hard with so many opportunities maybe in the history of the Olympics. But I will take it, I mean, it is a joke.”

Accustomed to dominating the sport, Shiffrin couldn’t shake whatever struggles — whether physical or mental — haunted her throughout the Olympics.

In fact, before her slalom run in the alpine combined, it was all she could think about.

“I’m not totally confident with the slalom. I have a recurring, like, image of myself skiing out on the fifth gate again,” Shiffrin told NBC after the downhill, laughing almost matter-of-factly.

Shiffrin earlier put herself in good position to capture that elusive third career gold medal, finishing the downhill — the first part of the alpine combined in fifth place and just a half-second off of first place, but behind skiers who are far better in downhill than slalom.

Considered her worst discipline, Shiffrin’s promising downhill performance put her within striking distance in slalom, her signature event. In the alpine combined, she decided to use Italian skier Sofia Goggia’s, who wasn’t competing in alpine combined, skis, a decision she made in hopes to change her fortunes.

After a promising start in the downhill, Shiffrin’s fortunes, at least in this edition of the Olympics, stayed the same.

Shiffrin wiped out for the third time. Photo by Alexis Boichard/Agence Zoom/Getty Images

Swiss skier Michelle Gisin, who also finished the downhill in first, took home gold, 1.05 seconds better than her countrywoman Wendy Holdener, who captured silver. Italian skier Federica Brignone won bronze.

Shiffrin’s crash closed the book, individually, on a massively disappointing Olympics for the 26-year-old skiing phenom, who entered the tournament looking to cement her place atop the sport’s apex. Instead, Shiffrin will leave Beijing without an individual medal, and without even completing three of her five events.

Shiffrin still has a chance to get a medal as she chose to compete on Team USA in the mixed team parallel slalom competition, where she will become just the second woman to compete in six skiing events at a single Olympics.

As for Shiffrin’s individual events, she was one good slalom run away from salvaging a disastrous two weeks, she instead ended up on the snow.

This story first appeared in the New York Post and was republished with permission.