Mikaela Shiffrin crashes out of alpine skiing events for third time at Beijing Winter Olympic Games

US ski star Mikaela Shiffrin has not got much experience of failure.

That's why her twin DNFs earlier in the Olympics in the slalom and giant slalom were such shocks.

Shiffrin was coming into these Games as a genuine medal chance in at least three events – the technical events she has dominated in recent years on her way to 73 World Cup titles, the third most ever.

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Instead, she crashed out in all three.

Arguably the best active alpine skier in the world, Shiffrin's torrid Games continued when she crashed out of the slalom leg of the combined event on Thursday, her third DNF of the Olympics.

Incredibly, the 26-year-old has now crashed out of two slaloms in the space of a week.

Shiffrin said afterwards that «60 per cent» of her career DNFs had happened at this Olympic Games.

Her maths isn't quite right. According to snow sports' international governing body FIS, Shiffrin has had six DNFs in giant slalom over the past eight years, as well as the three slalom races she has crashed out of in that time.

But it's still an incredible blip in her stellar record.

«I didn't feel pressure there,» Shiffrin told the Olympic Information Service after the race.

«I mean, there's always pressure but … I just felt loose and relaxed. I knew my plan — focused, good skiing — and I was doing it and it still didn't work.»

* DNF = Did not finish

What's more remarkable is that Shiffrin appeared to be in a good place after the disappointment of last week, two DNFs that she described as a «failure» and was at a complete loss to explain.

She finished ninth in the Super-G and 18th in the downhill earlier this week, but then stormed to a fifth-place finish in this morning's speed element of the combined — an event that combines the two times a skier achieves