The last week of the Olympics in Beijing gave Mikaela Schiffrin two more real chances to recover from her stunning failures and not to leave China empty-handed: the combination and team competitions. But as a result, the American star only made her already terrible showing at the 2022 Games worse.
In the downhill combination, Shiffrin had a very decent time, and she was approaching the slalom as the No.1 favorite: the American did not lose so much to the pure speed skaters, and she had a comfortable margin over the slalom skaters. However, the story of the previous week repeated itself: Michaela was off the track again. It was hard to think of a more failed performance at the Olympics, even if one wanted to.
Of course, even a medal in Sunday’s team event would have been seen by very few people as rehabilitation for the previous failures, but Mikaela did not manage to win this medal either. The U.S. finished fourth, losing to Norway for the bronze. On the last day of the Games Schiffrin finally managed to finish in technical discipline, but overall for the U.S. team in this tournament she was more ballast than a locomotive. Ahead of Mikaela also has a tough fight for the Big Crystal Globe (BCG), and how she is going to defend her minimal advantage in such a psychological state and form, it is difficult to say.
Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Mikaela Shiffrin
Returning to the combination, Michelle Gisin won the gold, just like four years ago in Pyeongchang. Moreover, she made such a strong slalom attempt that there is a big doubt that Shiffrin would have beaten her even if she had made it to the finish. Silver went to Gisin’s Swiss teammate Wendy Holdener – she stopped one step away from a big win again.
But the most interesting and long-awaited start of the last week of the Olympics in the women’s ski program was definitely the downhill, which took place on Tuesday. All eyes were on Sofia Goga. The Italian, who has dominated the discipline on the World Cup for the past two years, suffered a bad knee injury in January, which almost put her out of the running.
But the brave and courageous Italian managed to pull off a feat and went back out on track without having to heal the injury. This tale of heroism almost had a happy end: she missed only 0.16 seconds to win. Silver, considering the circumstances, is also a fantastic result, for which Sofia should be given a standing ovation.
Many people feared that in Goji’s absence, or if she was poorly prepared, the gold could go to some random character. But that was not to be: Corinne Souter, the reigning world downhill champion, won. If anyone was worthy of beating Ghodja, it was the Swiss. She was still losing at the penultimate check point to the Italian athlete, but she managed to cross the finish line brilliantly and tipped the scales in her favor. Not only Goga, but the Italian team as well, showed great results not only in the downhill. Nadia Delago won the bronze medal and Elena Curtoni finished in the top 5.
