Mikaela Shiffrin's disappointment stirs lessons from Simone Biles: Column

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When Mikaela Shiffrin careened off the course, another expected gold medal slipping away before she hardly got started, the announcers from NBC let her have it.

"One of the bigger shockers in Olympic alpine skiing history," play-by-play man Dan Hicks bellowed.

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"Almost a rookie mistake," analyst Ted Ligety, a two-time gold medalist himself, chimed in harshly.

The cameras honed in on Shiffrin, who clicked out of her skies and plopped down on the artificial snow — head bowed, arms resting on bent knees — as she tried to process another unimaginable outcome in the first run of the slalom.

NBC seemed determined to document every single one of Shiffrin's tears, to the point of failing to even show the next few skiers that took to the treacherous course known as Ice River.

In a different era, AKA before last summer, this sort of coverage would have been accepted, almost expected.

But times have changed since Simone Biles bared her mental-health issues to the world at the Tokyo Games, and other athletes have followed her lead.

In that emerging context, it wasn't surprising at all for social media to quickly turn its wrath on the network that had banked so much of its coverage on Shiffrin being one of the biggest stars.

"Some really shameful coverage by NBC of Michaela Schiffrin," one person tweeted. "Just pure trauma porn for their ratings instead of treating her like a human."

A team member consoles Mikaela Shiffrin, of the United States after she skied out in the first run of the women's slalom at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022, in the Yanqing district of Beijing.  (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty))

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