Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics daily briefing: USA strike gold at last

Today in a nutshell: It was a tough day at the office for favourites Mikaela Shiffrin and Charlotte Bankes, but the redemption of Lindsey Jacobellis is a tale for the ages

Next up: The opening men’s curling matches and the luge doubles, and then tomorrow we get the chance to watch Nathan Chen going for gold, while the US men start their ice hockey campaign

Petra Vlhova set the pace early in the women’s slalom, and then had to watch a series of world-class skiers come down the hill and just fail to pip her time, giving her Slovakia’s first ever Alpine skiing gold. Katharina Liensberger took silver for Austria. Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener was third. Swede Sara Hector had looked set to win a second gold in three days, but the newly-crowned giant slalom champion fell with the finish line in sight and an advantage over Vlhova of almost half a second.

Yet perhaps the defining image of the event was US star Mikaela Shiffrin sitting in the snow with her head bowed in disbelief for several minutes after she was disqualified after missing a gate early in first run. After crashing out of her last event, her dream of a record medal haul is rapidly becoming a nightmare and afterwards she said she might not continue to compete in these Games.

It was a very different story for Lindsey Jacobellis, who won the first US gold of Beijing in the women’s snowboardcross final. It was redemption for the 36-year-old, who missed out on gold in the 2006 Turin Games with a late fall while in the lead after she attempted a showboating jump trick while well clear of eventual winner Tanja Frieden.

After today’s victory, Jacobellis said: “They can keep talking about the 2006 Games all they want because it really shaped me into the individual that I am