Olympics-Alpine skiing-Tearful Shiffrin questions if she should race further in Beijing

By Simon Jennings and Shadia Nasralla

YANQING, China (Reuters) - A tearful Mikaela Shiffrin questioned whether she could pick herself up and return to competition at the Winter Olympics after skiing out of the slalom on Wednesday and failing to finish for the second race in a row.

The 26-year-old American, who has dominated the technical events in recent years, was eliminated after missing an early gate.

She also crashed out on the first run of the giant slalom on Monday after coming into the race as the defending Olympic champion.

Shiffrin sat slumped by the side of the course with her head in her hands after her aborted run, and choked back tears while trying to come to terms with what had happened.

"Yeah. I mean, no," she said in response to a question on whether she would continue to compete at these Olympics. "I will try to reset again. Maybe try to reset better this time.

"But I also don't know how to do it better because... I just don't. I've never been in this position before and I don't know how to handle it."

The next two races in the women's individual alpine programme are the super-G on Friday followed by the downhill on Tuesday. The individual programme ends with the alpine combined race on Feb. 17.

"The hill on the speed track looks pretty incredible and I think it would be a pleasure to ski. But I also have some team mates who are really fast. And we have the athletes who can fill the spaces," Shiffrin added.

"So if I'm going to ski out on the fifth gate, like what's the point?"

Shiffrin said her two performances had left her feeling like she had let everybody down.

"It's not the end of the world and it's so stupid to care this much, but I feel like I have to question a lot now," she said. "I feel a lot of