The two-time Olympic champion, Mikaela Shiffrin is going through the worst patch in her career as she faces setbacks one after another.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who is one of the most dominant personalities in ski racing fell severely on Monday which made her make an early exit from the event of women’s giant slalom at the Winter Olympics currently going on in Beijing.
According to the news, at first, it felt like an anomaly or a glitch that might have happened because of the pitched mountains and the overly slippery conditions of the event.
But come Wednesday, it was clear that luck is not on the side of Mikaela Shiffrin as she skidded off the course mere seconds before the end of her second race. This mishap took place at the slalom, which is known to be her best event.
Shiffrin ended up on the sides, ditching her poles and skis while sitting down in the snow. She bent down to bury her head between her knees. The remorse was so evident as she remained in that spot for about 20 minutes while the other contestants and her rivals went past her.
Slalom is known to be the most daunting ski racing which requires a lot of discipline.
It is absolutely unfathomable to imagine that one of the most prized slalom skiers ends up in her best event in mere 5 seconds for which she had been preparing for the past four years.
Mikaela Shiffrin has three races left in the Winter Olympics at the moment but it looks quite uncertain whether she will be taking part in any of them or not.
She appeared to be confused and shaken after scanting out of the slalom event. She was in tears while talking to the press and did not try to conceal her heartbreak.
“I will try to reset again and maybe try to reset better this time,” she said. “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.
“If I am going to ski out on the fifth gate, well, what’s the point?”
“I had the intention to do my best skiing and my quickest turns,” Shiffrin said. “But in order to do that I had to push the line, the tactics. And it is really on the limit then. And things happened so fast that there was really no space to slip up even a little bit.”
26-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin won the slalom at the Olympic games of 2014 and since then has dominated this event. She has won more world cup slalom races than any male or female player ever, 47 to be precise.
This is the first time she failed to finish the slalom event – it happened for the first time in about four years.
