Shiffrin gets silver, better of Vonn
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The showdown between Lindsey Vonn and her heir apparent, Mikaela Shiffrin, has been a dominant subplot throughout the Pyeongchang Olympics, and it was in the air again on the final run of the last individual Alpine race.
Vonn and Shiffrin, each an Olympic champion, had rarely raced against each other in any setting. But late Thursday afternoon, as an approaching snowstorm cast a shadow over her, Vonn stood in the start house for almost certainly the last time at a Winter Games with a chance to join Shiffrin on the podium — even, possibly, to grab the gold medal and push Shiffrin, sitting in second place, to the bronze.
In that instant, Vonn was leading the race, the women’s Alpine combined. There were 52 gates and about 700 yards separating her from the finish line.
Vonn charged forward, but a dozen seconds later she was reeling. Struggling to regain her balance, she missed a gate. Vonn skidded to a stop at the side of the racecourse, her Olympic journey here, and likely forever, concluded, a torch passed.
At the bottom of the mountain, the surprise winner of the event, Michelle Gisin of Switzerland, celebrated her gold medal. Her tworun combined time of 2 minutes, 20.90 seconds was nearly a second better than Shiffrin, the prerace favorite who seemed both happy and relieved to have earned a silver medal. Wendy Holdener, Gisin’s teammate, won the bronze.
“To return to the Olympics was the biggest goal and that’s why I’ve had a smile on my face every day I’ve been in South Korea,” said Vonn, 33, who won a bronze medal in Wednesday’s downhill. “I accomplished what I set out to do. … I wanted to go out guns blazing and I did. The last run came up short, but I knew it was going to take a miracle for me at that point.”
Shiffrin, meanwhile, came to Pyeongchang with a more ambitious goal: to win three or more events, a reasonable expectation since she was the clear favorite in two and a top contender in a third. The 22-year-old fell short. But on Thursday, Shiffrin said her greatest ambition was to prove that she was an elite racer in each of the five Alpine disciplines.
“First of all, it’s pretty nice to have two more Olympic medals,” she said. “And my other big goal was to prove that I could branch out and not just be a slalom skier. For me, it is huge to know that I can now put down fast times in pretty much any event and contend for medals in multiple events.
“And I get to take a breath and celebrate my gold and silver medals. And that’s pretty good.”