Shiffrin goes 0-for-Games
Mikaela Shiffrin and the American mixed ski team missed out on a medal by 0.42 seconds, losing in the bronze matchup Sunday in the final Alpine ski event of the Beijing Olympics.
The top-ranked Austrians won gold in the Winter Games’ second iteration of the mixed team parallel event, holding off Germany in the final.
The U.S. primarily used Shiffrin on the slower of the parallel courses, and she lost three of her four heats, including in the bronze matchup against Norway. Teammate River Radamus delivered the victory the U.S. needed in the last heat to force a 2-2 tie, but he wasn’t fast enough to tilt the tiebreaker — combined times of the fastest man and woman — to the Americans’ favor.
“River, we’re watching you at the bottom there, and the fact you’re skiing so strongly, you’re giving us hope, that’s the biggest win you could give us,” Shiffrin said to Radamus.
Shiffrin, a two-time gold medalist, went 0-for-5 in her bid for an individual medal in Beijing. She reached the finish line at two individual events, coming in ninth in the super-G and 18th in the downhill, her two worst contests. She only lasted about five gates in giant slalom, five gates in the slalom and 10 in the slalom portion of the two-leg combined.