Shiffrin addresses Team Combined performance on social media

By John Henderson for CPR News

After a disastrous first event in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics on Tuesday, Colorado skier Mikaela Shiffrin went to social media to put her experience in perspective.

On her Instagram account posted Wednesday, she put her life in skiing in perspective. In Tuesday’s team combined, the most decorated slalomist in history had only the 15th best time out of 18 skiers. It plummeted her and teammate, downhill gold medalist Breezy Johnson, from first to fourth.

It comes four years after Shiffrin fell three times and didn’t medal in six events in the Beijing Olympics. After calmly addressing the media immediately after her race Tuesday, she did a self video on Instagram the next night.

“I was quoted in an interview just about not wanting Beijing to be a reason that I feel fear going into Cortina,” she said. “But at the same time, I think it’s unavoidable, because there are so many eyes on the event.”

Shiffrin has a record 108 World Cup wins, including a record 71 in slalom and nine Crystal Globes in slalom, given to the top overall finisher in each discipline. Yet she received a mountain of criticism after Beijing and is receiving similar comments on social media these past 48 hours.

“People don’t have any concept of what you do outside these couple weeks and I did experience a very dark side of that level of viewership because of Beijing,” she said. “And I can’t unexperience that.”

Shiffrin, 30, determined her destiny long ago when she won gold in the slalom in 2014, at 18 years of age, and giant slalom in 2018. In 2018, she also won silver in the individual combined. However, her last Olympic medal was eight years ago.

She knows most viewers only watch skiing every four years but admits the Olympics are special to her, too.

“You’ve got athletes all there with the competitive spirit and cheering for each other and hyping each other up,” she said. “And it’s so spirited and so human. The other side of what seems to be perceived on the other side of the TV, that can feel very nonhuman.”

She still has time to save her Olympics. Though she’s not favored to medal in Sunday’s giant slalom, where she has made only one podium in eight World Cups this season, she is the heavy favorite in Wednesday’s slalom where she has won seven of eight World Cup races.

At least she was the heavy favorite until Tuesday.

“You’re supposed to be here to win and perform and to bring home a medal and to be perfect,” she said. “It’s very over simplified for the experience that all the athletes are actually having. Every single Olympics feels massive in the moment. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s like, one journal entry or a handful of journal entries in the story of your life.

“And no Olympics can decisively define an athlete.”

John Henderson is a former Denver Post sportswriter living in Rome.