Mikaela Shiffrin: ‘Failure is scary but I’ve had a lot of spectacular moments’

She doesn’t pretend this isn’t hard. Devastating, even. When you’ve won as often as Mikaela Shiffrin – three overall World Cup titles, two Olympic gold medals, more victories on alpine skiing’s top flight than all but two people in history – the acid taste of coming up short under the brightest lights will never be easy. Nor should it.

But as the 26-year-old American stood at the bottom of the women’s super-G course on Friday having crossed the finish line for the first time in three races at the Beijing Olympics, the familiar smile that’s been absent throughout the most arduous week of her professional life was back.

It wasn’t the result she wanted. Shiffrin needed 1min 14.30sec to negotiate the icy track known as the Rock, coming in 0.79sec behind the early leader and eventual gold medalist Lara Gut-Behrami, of Switzerland, beneath a pale blue sky on the south side of Xiaohaituo Mountain.

But simply making it down the course and finishing ninth overall was reason enough to feel good amid the lowest week of a career defined by dizzying highs.

“It felt really nice to ski that today,” Shiffrin said. “There’s been a lot of disappointment over the last week. There’s a lot of emotions. [It was] not really easy to reset and know if I was up for the challenge today.

“The track itself is beautiful, and it’s sunny, and the snow is amazing. Coming back out and getting the chance to race again was just the perfect thing to do, actually.”

Shiffrin’s disqualifications for missing gates early in her opening runs of Monday’s giant slalom and Wednesday’s slalom were unexpected enough. After all, the Colorado native had failed to finish a race only twice in four years entering the Beijing Games – and a total of 13 times in 228 starts