Mikaela Shiffrin wanted to "melt off the face of the earth" at Beijing 2022

Mikaela Shiffrin said she wanted to "melt off the face of the earth" after she skied out on the first run of the slalom at Beijing 2022.

The American alpine skiing ace concluded her individual Olympic Winter Games campaign on Thursday (17 February) with another DNF as she skied out of the slalom of the Alpine combined at the National Alpine Skiing Centre when looking booked for a medal.

That followed the giant slalom and slalom where she crashed out both times after four gates.

After crashing out of the slalom, the two-time Olympic champion sat by the course while summoning up the courage to ski down.

She told NBC NEWS/TODAY: "When I was sitting on the side of the slalom hill after I DNF’ed in the slalom race last week, I wanted to just melt off the face of the earth.

"I just wanted to disappear, and I was like, 'I’m going to have to ski down this hill into the finish and face humans that are judging — no matter what it’s a judgment,' - and I was so not prepared to do that and, 'I just need to take a minute because this feels so awful.'"

Shiffrin arrived in China looking to add to her two Sochi 2014 slalom and PyeongChang 2018 giant slalom triumphs.

Aside from her DNFs, she finished ninth in the women's Super G and 18th in the downhill.

"I feel like a joke, but maybe it made someone smile," Shiffrin said. "At a certain point it feels like you kind of have to just laugh at it. I think there's probably people out there who are a little bit laughing at my situation and maybe not in a particularly kind way.

"I think it’s OK to say that it was a pretty epic underperformance. Didn’t get anywhere close to the results that I had the potential to get, and I certainly had ample opportunity."

Shiffrin will leave Beijing without an