Mikaela Shiffrin's Beijing Olympics got off to a dramatic and disappointing start on Monday as the Team USA alpine skier crashed out on the first run of the women's giant slalom.
“The day was finished, basically, before it even started,” the 26-year-old American star told reporters after going down at just the fifth turn in her bid to defend the gold medal she won in 2018.
Shiffrin said she had gone too hard into the turn, resulting in the disastrous error.
“There’s huge disappointment,” she said.
She also vowed to move on from Monday's disappointment, with more medal hopes still to come: "We have to move forward because there’s a lot a lot still to come the next weeks,” Shiffrin added.
Shiffrin is the favorite in Tuesday night's slalom, but is also a medal contender in the combined, in addition to having hopes in the speed events.
The athlete said she suffered a string of difficulties throughout the course of the season, including previously testing positive for Covid-19 and suffering an injury.
Still, she said, her Monday crash was likely little more than a mistake.
“We can go to a lot of different places during the season where we can put the blame but I think the easiest thing to say is that I skied a couple good turns and I skied one turn a bit wrong and I really paid the hardest consequence for that,” she said.
Shiffrin said the disappointment over her brutal start would likely stay with her forever.
“I never get over it and I won’t ever get over this either,” she said. “But I’m just have to put the pause button on really feeling the emotions or dwelling on it, because it just takes too much energy and I just can’t, I can’t do it."
She also said that her disappointment will only drive her "to try to keep working and improving."
Ultimately, the athlete said: "I’m not going to cry about this because that’s just wasting energy."
She'll now focus on becoming the first Alpine skier from the United States to win three Olympic golds across a career.
