[News] 'I just feel like a joke': Devastated Mikaela Shiffrin left reeling after third Beijing crash

[Ap0caLipse]

LINK:https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/17/sport/mikaela-shiffrin-ski-beijing-olympics-combined-crash-spt-intl/index.html

Mikaela Shiffrin's Beijing nightmare continued on Thursday with the US skiing star left reeling from a third did-not-finish (DNF) at the Games. Shiffrin arrived at the Winter Olympics looking to win a third consecutive gold at a Games, but after crashing out of the alpine combined event, the 26-year-old has incredibly suffered 60% of her career DNF's at the National Alpine Skiing Centre this month. She had already failed to finish in her favorite disciplines -- the slalom and giant slalom -- earlier in the Games, events that had reaped gold at Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018 respectively. Yet when asked whether her rocky start in Beijing had played on her mind heading into the combined event, an exasperated Shiffrin asserted that she had no intention of skiing safe just to finish. "It was not actually that much to ask for from myself, and I was starting to do it, and then I was out anyway," Shiffrin said. "I don't really understand it, and I'm not sure when I'm going to have much of an explanation. I can't explain to you how frustrated I am to not know what I can learn from today."

Shiffrin had made a positive start to the combined event. Despite her disappointing start to the Games, Shiffrin had started well in the combined event, placing fifth in the downhill course to put her within range of a podium finish heading into the deciding slalom run. "I finally felt I could really trust my instincts in the track," Shiffrin said after her downhill run, and maintained that -- despite the permanent presence of pressure -- she had carried a "calm, solid mentality" into the slalom. "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 said. "That's disappointing for me, it's disappointing for my whole team, for the coaches, for everybody who's been working so hard, and it's disappointing for anybody back home who woke up and thought, especially today, 'Hey, she did a pretty good downhill run, set up pretty well for the slalom.' "Right now, I just feel like a joke."