Two-time U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist Mikaela Shiffrin has been disqualified from the giant Slalom skiing event at the Winter Olympics in Yanqing, Beijing. The alpine skier fell down on her left hip and could not remain upright on her feet, getting disqualified from the sport. As the defending champion for the sport, Shiffrin can now unfortunately not bring home her 3rd gold medal for the country in alpine skiing.
26-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin has been skiing professionally for 11 years now. She has participated in a total of 229 races and competitions including; the World Cup, Olympics, and world championships as well. Out of those 200+ times participating, she has only tumbled out of the course 14 times, the rest of those were all successful laps. NBC reports that only 3 out of those 14 times have occurred in the past four years, making this an even-odd occurrence.
She said about her unfortunate fall on Monday after the event, “I was pushing or I felt I was really pushing in those turns. It’s hard to know how it would have gone when you’re only four or five turns into the run. The day was basically finished before it even started. But I felt that I really had the right mentality.”
Mikaela Shiffrin said about the disappointment of her disqualification, saying she felt good about the conditions, “But it’s a huge disappointment, not even counting medals. It’s a really good hill and really good conditions.”
Her fall came when she passed a gate towards a steep pitch and was shaky, struggling to maintain balance on her feet. The struggle for balance made her lose her momentum with the gates, and she fell on her left hip before reaching the next gate, coming to a halt.
The good news is there are still four other competitions that Mikaela Shiffrin is competing in at the Winter Olympics. Apart from the giant slalom, the slalom is another big one where she could win a medal, likely a gold too. Said way better by herself, “I skied one turn a bit wrong and I paid the hardest consequence for that, but now I have to move forward because there’s lots to come this week. I’m not going to cry about this because that’s just wasting energy. My chance is to move forward and to refocus and I feel like I’m in a good place to do that.”
