Mikaela Shiffrin's stumbles magnified by the Olympics lens

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By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports activities Columnist

Mikaela Shiffrin sat there within the snow, questioning, identical to everybody else, what the heck had simply occurred. There weren’t any tears — not but — as a result of she was too surprised for that.

And he or she sat there some extra, by the mountainside, reflecting on how 5 seconds — simply 5 seconds — have been sufficient to show what we’d been conditioned to imagine was a sure medal into all these waves of disappointment.

Skiers carried on down the course, one after one other, none of them with the pedigree and historical past of Shiffrin in her favored occasion of the slalom. For a lot of of them, the exceptional exit of the American opened up the opportunity of an upset the place none had beforehand appeared possible.

Between them, Shiffrin and Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova have gained 39 of the previous 42 World Cup slalom races. Vlhova recovered from a poor first run that left her in eighth and stormed again to win gold with a blistering second leg.

After Shiffrin’s shock, do we actually want any extra reminders that something can occur in sports activities? The video games and occasions we love by no means fail to throw up confounding outcomes and one way or the other upend even essentially the most nailed-on of certainties.

The way in which Shiffrin’s time at Beijing 2022 has panned out to this point was one thing nobody noticed coming. Not for the reason that 2011 season, when she was simply 16 years outdated, has Alpine snowboarding’s greatest famous person recorded the game’s dreaded DNF — didn’t end — in consecutive occasions. On Sunday evening (U.S. time), she lasted simply 11 seconds within the large slalom earlier than an error ended her run.

Tuesday’s effort was alleged to be about redemption. It rapidly proved to not be.

In lots of sports activities, this type of factor can’t occur. In Sunday’s Tremendous Bowl, both Matthew Stafford or Joe Burrow may throw a pick-six on every of their first three drives, and nonetheless, the sport wouldn’t be over.

Tiger Woods in his pomp may make a triple-bogey on the opening gap of a Main and nonetheless come again and win the entire darn factor.

However in snowboarding, there is no such thing as a forgiveness. Slalom awards the gold to the skier with the bottom mixture time on two runs separated by just a few hours. However for those who miss a gate and don’t full your trek down the hill, you don’t get that second go-around.

Mikaela Shiffrin is pictured after not ending the primary run of the ladies’s slalom throughout the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Video games on Feb. 9, 2022. (Picture by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP by way of Getty Photos)

Minutes handed, and nonetheless, Shiffrin stayed there, trying once in a while on the third gate, the one which reduce brief her run on a course arrange by her coach. Such issues are executed on a lottery foundation, and it was thought the shorter distance between gates would favor her.

“Makes me second-guess the final 15 years,” she instructed reporters later, because the tears lastly got here. “The whole lot I assumed I knew about my very own snowboarding and slalom and racing mentality. Simply processing so much, for certain.”

For the technically minded, here’s what occurred. She got here out aggressively and quick, seeking to construct velocity and keep away from stagnating on a flat high of the course. Nevertheless, the tactic backfired. Her skis straightened an excessive amount of, too rapidly, pointing down the mountain as a substitute of throughout to the subsequent focused gate.

That method meant she acquired too low, too quickly. Making an attempt to regain management, her skis skidded from beneath her and pulled her even additional off beam. After which, it was over, with a yell of frustration and a collective “what the … ?” from these watching.

Let’s say this another time, and imagine me, I’m doing this as a lot for my very own profit as anything as a result of I’m responsible of it, too: There are not any certain issues in sports activities.

Simply because somebody is the face of an Olympic marketing campaign, like Simone Biles was and like Shiffrin is, bear in mind that there’s all the time a area stuffed with rivals attempting to cease them. And in sports activities with a fiendish degree of issue, there may be all the time the possibility that one thing will occur — unexpected occasions and, even from the easiest, inconceivable errors.

“Sadly, that’s ski racing,” Olympic legend Lindsey Vonn mentioned on NBC.

Simply because sponsors determine to place somebody in a flurry of commercials and a broadcast community opts to spend extra time on an athlete than any of their friends doesn’t give them further factors or a head-start or any form of benefit in any respect.

Shiffrin’s edge was merely that she has confirmed herself able to acting at a traditionally excessive degree. The chances have been in her favor. However destiny selected to time its greatest mischief for the grandest stage of all, which is typically the way it goes.

Shiffrin is immensely likable and personable and a fantastic ambassador for her sport. She misplaced her father, Jeff, two years in the past and selected to honor his reminiscence by sharing a number of the 1000’s of images he took whereas following the snowboarding scene all through her profession.

She has been an athlete of metronomic consistency — till now. However she’s a human, too. She’s not resistant to nerves, and she or he’s definitely not buffered in opposition to the darkish throes of feeling that she let herself down.

She takes it exhausting when issues don’t work out. She’ll take this one more durable than ever. Hopefully, she’ll discover some perspective rapidly and be capable of shrug off the ache, however don’t depend on it as a result of that’s not usually how sporting greats function.

Finally, after 26 minutes Tuesday, Shiffrin rose to her toes and made her method down the mountain to face a flurry of questions and to attempt to prepare for her three remaining occasions.

“I really feel actually dangerous,” she added. “There may be much more happening than simply my little scenario, however I really feel actually dangerous for … for doing that.”

In considered one of her disciplines to come back — the mixed, on the evening of Feb. 16 — she is going to once more be the favourite. She’s adequate to win it. She would possibly accomplish that. On pre-Beijing type, she may very well be forgiven for considering it’s hers to lose.

But when these Winter Olympics have taught us something, it’s that it’s not often so simple as that.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports activities and the creator of the FOX Sports activities Insider E-newsletter. You’ll be able to subscribe to the publication right here.