2026 Winter Olympics: Strain mounts for Mikaela Shiffrin after newest shortcoming

One of the vital fascinating and compelling competitions at the 2026 Winter Olympics is the workforce mixed alpine snowboarding contest, a brand new self-discipline for the Milan Cortina Video games. It is a terrific improve. The duo-oriented occasion options one skier barreling via the downhill and the opposite zig-zagging within the slalom. The bottom mixed time after each races will get the gold. This workforce idea with these two races has by no means been within the Olympics earlier than and figures to be one of many must-see points of interest in future Video games. 

With that because the backdrop, the setup was ideally suited in Italy for america and, specifically, for Breezy Johnson and American snowboarding celebrity Mikaela Shiffrin. Johnson, who already gained gold in girls’s downhill (in the identical race that noticed Lindsey Vonn’s scary crash), took to the mountain in Cortina D’Ampezzo Tuesday morning and got here via once more, ending with the quickest time (1:36.59).

Johnson’s spectacular push arrange what was anticipated to be a shoo-in medal for her and Shiffrin, probably gold.

However ski racing is gained and misplaced on tiny, icy margins and there’s no assure, ever, that the favorites will come via. That axiom proved true once more for Shiffrin on Tuesday. The 30-year-old was too inhibited out of the gate after which oddly stiff down her slalom run. In the end, she was incapable of sustaining the lead Johnson offered after the downhill portion. 

Shockingly, Shiffrin delivered the Fifteenth-slowest time (45.38 seconds) of the 18 slalom skiers, which pushed Johnson/Shiffrin to a fourth-place end, .06 seconds behind fellow People Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan, who took bronze. (Austria’s Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber took gold, Germany’s Kira Weidle-Winkelmann and Emma Aicher earned silver.)

“Throughout my run I had a sense that I wasn’t getting my groove in addition to — generally, there is a feeling — and I used to be making an attempt to reset each flip and produce in additional,” Shiffrin instructed NBC Sports activities afterward, including that there have been “so, so many constructive issues concerning the day, and I did not actually reside as much as that.”

She additionally admitted her consolation stage wasn’t the place she wished it to be for this race.

Credit score to Shiffrin for shortly taking to social media and congratulating Wiles and Motzan, by the best way. An aesthetic exhibiting amid simple disappointment. That stated, it is a bit worrying for somebody as proficient as Shiffrin. 

It is unusual to see one of the best and most achieved feminine skier in historical past tighten up once more on the largest stage, however that speaks to the stress of the Olympics. The world is watching, as each athlete is all too conscious of, and you need to be prepared for something as a way to win all the things. Any mistake — or a series of tiny ones — will push you off the medal stand. 

“We requested for a miracle and I feel we had been delivered one,” Wiles instructed the press after securing bronze. “I feel for those who let Mikaela go run that course … I feel she’d come down within the lead by not less than a second.” 

The nice: Shiffrin completed with out lacking a gate. She obtained down the course in an Olympic occasion on Tuesday. Mentally, that is necessary. Her 2022 Beijing expertise was a weird battle of thoughts versus physique. Shiffrin had three DNFs and three non-podium finishes in China, failing to medal after being billed as the largest American star of these Video games. 

The unhealthy: Shiffrin ending Fifteenth out of 18 skiers in her greatest occasion is sort of inexplicable. Any such run was exhausting to think about even after the regrettable 2022 no-show. It is her worst end (that is not a DNF) in nearly 14 years.

Most studying this will not understand it, however Shiffrin and Johnson gained the 2025 world championships on this occasion. They’ve confirmed they are often one of the best on the earth. Plus, Shiffrin bounced again nicely from Beijing lately, upping her document to 108 World Cup wins to go along with eight world championship titles, plus two golds and a silver from earlier Olympics. She has 71 victories in slalom alone, essentially the most in historical past.

Shiffrin suffered a scary puncture wound to her stomach whereas competing in 2024, however even after that she gained extra races. She is sort of actually one of the best and most achieved slalom skier ever. 

To complete Fifteenth? What?

She has now didn’t medal in seven consecutive Olympic races. Hardly ever does an all-time nice in a person sport fail to fulfill the second so many instances in a row like this. 

Fortunately, it isn’t her final shot.

Shiffrin has two extra alternatives to medal. She’ll ski within the large slalom on Sunday, then return to the slalom course subsequent Wednesday. Her Cortina story continues to be very a lot to be decided, however Tuesday’s slip-up raises the stakes and anxiousness round these Video games for the largest remaining star nonetheless competing on behalf of Staff USA.

Name it jitters, name it no matter you want, however Shiffrin’s psychological battle once more appears to be creeping out of her head and manifesting in Olympic snow. She’s as gracious in defeat as she is spectacular in victory; it is time for her to recollect the latter as a lot as she’s capable of present the previous. How Shiffrin readies herself for her subsequent race on Sunday will likely be crucial to salvaging these Video games and upping her legacy among the many all-time nice Olympians in United States historical past.

After Johnson put Shiffrin in fairly actually one of the best place attainable, most assumed she would return to kind. After which she failed. In consequence, now there’s precise stress on Shiffrin to exit and do one thing she hasn’t needed to do or really feel in a very long time: show to everybody she’s nonetheless one of the best skier on the earth.