Mikaela Shiffrin after disqualification in second race: ‘What went wrong this entire time?’

Renowned American skier Mikaela Shiffrin reflected on missing a turn and being disqualified from the first Alpine event at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Mikaela Shiffrin isn’t used to failure.

The last time she failed in a big race was 30 races ago in Jan. 2018, just a few weeks before the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. After the miss, the renowned American skier went on to win Olympic gold. In Beijing, she missed an opportunity to do that when she miscalculated a turn and went skidding into the snow. Shiffrin was disqualified from her first Olympic race at the 2022 Games, and it prompted her to reflect.

“There’s a lot of questions that will be asked,” the two-time Olympic gold medalist from the United States said Monday. “And I think many people are going to say, ‘What went wrong this entire time?’”

“We can go to a lot of different places during the season where we can put the blame,” she continued. “But I think the easiest thing to say is that I skied a couple of good turns and I skied one turn a bit wrong and I really paid the hardest consequence for that.”

Because of the faulty turn, Shiffrin was unable to defend her title in the Grand Slalom event from  2018 Pyeongchang.

American skier Mikaela Shiffrin reflects on missed turn, disqualification

Shiffrin described her approach to the fateful turn as “almost anxious”, and her result in the race as a “huge disappointment.”

After she was out, Shiffrin headed to the sidelines to hug her mom, Eileen, who doubles as her skiing coach. Shiffrin also spoke with boyfriend Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, a Norwegian Olympic skier who placed fifth in the downhill event.

Immediately afterward, Shiffrin was back on the hill practicing for her next event.

For a skier described as “a textbook of skiing technique,” it will undoubtedly be challenging to put her first Olympic race behind her — but she’s already hard at work on doing so.

“And now, we have to move forward, because there’s a lot still to come the next weeks,” Shiffrin said.