Beijing Winter Olympic Games 2022 Alpine Skiing - Mikaela Shiffrin has no-one to apologise to

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be anything close to this. Ad/> Defeat is always possible, especially for someone as supremely talented and dominant as Mikaela Shiffrin.

The way Petra Vlhova has been skiing this season (she deserves every ounce of credit possible for what it’s worth) certainly meant that a silver or even a bronze was well within the realms of possibility. Gold was not a forgone conclusion by any means. /> Beijing 2022'Really surprising' — Myhrer discusses Shiffrin crashing out in women's slalom5 HOURS AGO Heck, even a freak of nature occurrence like getting hit by a bird during a run seemed more plausible than what we’ve witnessed over the last few days.

Because in both the giant slalom and slalom, the two disciplines where Shiffrin excels above pretty much everyone else in the history of the sport, she has twice made errors that were not just uncharacteristic, but actually mind-boggling when you consider the prowess of the person committing them. To put this into perspective the last time Shiffrin DNFed in consecutive technical races was back in 2011, when she was just 16. As a result we watched a hugely disheartened Shiffrin who in her post-race interviews was questioning everything, from her process to her continuation in Beijing.

«I will try to re-set again. Maybe try to re-set better this time but I also don't know how to do better because I just don't. /> “We came all this way.