Despite her crash in the giant slalom on Monday, Mikaela Shiffrin will still have her eye on a piece of American Winter Olympics history when she takes to the slopes again on Wednesday.
With the 26-year-old set to compete in all five individual skiing events, Shiffrin will be hoping to become the first US skier to win three medals at a single Games.
Though she is widely considered the most dominant skier of her generation — and will go down as one of the greatest ever when she eventually retires — even securing one medal is by no means a certainty, given the quality of her opposition.
Shiffrin will be among the gold medal contenders in the combined — an event she won silver in four years ago in Pyeongchang and also won at last year’s World Championships — although Monday’s DNF in the giant slalom is proof that nothing is a given in alpine skiing.
The Colorado native also created an interesting pre-Olympic wrinkle in the lead up to Beijing, beating heavy favorite Petra Vlhova in the slalom in Schladming, Austria.
It was a record-breaking 47th World Cup slalom win for Shiffrin, who became the skier with the most victories in a single World Cup discipline, breaking Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark’s previous record of 46 giant slalom wins.
The win was certainly something of a shock, as Vlhova had dominated the slalom this season with five wins and two runner-up finishes.
The rescheduling of three of the five events in Pyeongchang due to high winds forced Shiffrin to pull out of super-G and downhill and the compacted schedule impacted her preparation for the slalom, leading her to fall agonizingly short of a medal in fourth place.
However, external factors permitting in Beijing, Shiffrin should have a legitimate shot at claiming a trio of medals.
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