American skier Mikaela Shiffrin failed to medal with teammate Breezy Johnson in the combined women’s Alpine team event on Tuesday, continuing Shiffrin’s string of disappointments at the Winter Olympics.
Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber of Austria took gold with a time of 2 minutes and 21.66 seconds, Kira Weidle-Winkelmann and Emma Aicher of Germany took silver (2:21.71) and Jacqueline Wiles and Paula Moltzan of the USA took bronze (2:21.91). Look at Moltzan slalom course here.
Shiffrin and Johnson finished fourth (2:21.97) in their debut at the Cortina Games in Milan.
Shiffrin, 30, skied with “measured” effort and showed “excitement,” an NBC announcer said as she completed the slalom course.
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Johnson congratulated Shiffrin on her “great job” after the run, but that probably provided little comfort.
At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Shiffrin failed to complete three events and failed to medal in any of the six she competed in.
The pressure was on again in Italy as Johnson, who won gold in the individual downhill on Sunday, earlier took the pair to first place in the team downhill section.
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Shiffrin and Johnson had won the team together at the world championships last year, raising expectations for a repeat in the Milan Cortina Games.
Shiffrin has unparalleled credentials, having won a record 108 World Alpine Championship events. She also won Olympic gold in the slalom in 2014 and the giant slalom in 2018.
But critics won’t let her process her disappointment in Beijing.
At the time, she said the setback “makes me doubt everything I thought I knew about my own skiing, slalom and mental racing over the past 15 years.
To turn up the drama in her 2026 Olympic debut, Shiffrin had to finish last due to her old friend Johnson’s first-place finish in the morning.
