Alpine skier regains her mental mojo

When an athlete succeeds as often as Mikaela Shiffrin does, the slip-ups suddenly seem to get a lot more attention.

So when Shiffrin held a pre-Olympics news conference Saturday, 48 hours before the first of what could be five events for the American skiing star at the Pyeongchang Games, the initial question was not about her 2014 slalom gold medal or her five-race World Cup winning streak last month. Instead, it was about failing to even finish three of her last four races.

Her explanation: She was tired.

Not so much physically exhausted — although that is a constant factor with the daily grind of the World Cup circuit — as she was simply mentally wiped out.

Shiffrin has won 10 of 23 World Cup races she entered this season — including five slalom victories and two in giant slaloms, her best two disciplines — and went 5-for-5 from Jan. 1-9. But in six appearances since that run of perfection, Shiffrin finished third once, seventh twice and not completed the course on three occasions.

“I was skiing really well, so I thought, ‘Oh, everything’s fine.’ But I wasn’t able to keep my mental focus until the finish, which is something that I actually pride myself on being really good at, normally. So when I’m not able to excel in the last quarter of the course or keep that focus through the finish, that’s when the red lights are flashing,” Shiffrin said.

“And I think that I needed to change something. That’s the biggest issue: It’s not always easy to tell. When I get mentally tired, I just get more emotional. I get annoying to my coaches,” she continued with a chuckle. “I’m not very fun to be around, and I can’t focus as easily. All those things that are kind of part of who I am sort of disappear.”

Possible hacking attack

Pyeongchang Olympic organizers are investigating a possible attack on their internet and Wi-Fi systems that took place about 45 minutes before the opening ceremony.

Organizing committee spokeswoman Nancy Park said the ceremony Friday not was not affected by the outage.