Mikaela Shiffrin’s Olympic dream turning into nightmare after slalom exit

Mikaela Shiffrin’s dream Olympics is fast turning into a nightmare.The 26-year-old overall World Cup leader was disqualified on Wednesday morning after missing a gate early in the first run of the women’s slalom, her signature event, leaving her bid for potential record medal haul in tatters.Shiffrin, the seventh racer out of the starting gate, sat in the snow alongside the netting on the side of the course with her head bowed in disbelief for several minutes as her rivals continued their runs down the steep technical course known as the Ice River.

The shock result came two days after the American skied out during her first run of the giant slalom, ending her Olympic title defense only seconds into her Beijing debut. Shiffrin had failed to finish a race only twice in four years entering the Beijing Games and 13 times in a total of 228 starts across all disciplines at World Cup, Olympic and world championship events.Shiffrin, whose three Olympic medals include gold in slalom in 2014 and in giant slalom in 2018, has said her plan is to race all five individual events in Beijing. Her next chance at becoming the first US alpine skier to win three Olympic golds will come Friday in the super-G.Once a teenage prodigy who became the youngest Olympic slalom champion in history at the Sochi Games, Shiffrin has since blossomed from a specialist into the world’s best all-around skier, branching out into the speed events with success and becoming the only skier, male or female, to win World Cup races in all six disciplines.Her 73 career wins on alpine skiing’s top circuit are third-most on the all-time leaderboard, trailing only Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark (86) and longtime US team-mate Lindsey Vonn (82).