Skier Mikaela Shiffrin of Team USA sits by the side of the course after the women's slalom at the Beijing Olympics on Feb. 9.Robert F. Bukaty/The Associated Press
More below • How does Olympic alpine skiing work? A visual guide
As an athlete, you can have a good Olympics, a bad Olympics or whatever sort of Olympics American downhill racer Mikaela Shiffrin is having. If agony is one polar end of sports, Shiffrin is starting to push its limits into something worse.
A skier who almost always completes her courses, Shiffrin couldn’t manage that in her first appearance in the giant slalom on Monday.
“I’m not going to cry about this, because that’s just wasting energy,” she said.
On Wednesday, it happened again, this time in slalom, and almost identically. A few turns through the course and then out.
After her mistake, Shiffrin floated over to one side of the run and dropped to the ground. She sat hunched in the snow, arms cradling her knees, head down. A member of Team USA eventually came out to sit down next to her and console her. It took several more colleagues to coax her down off the mountain. While she sat there, other racers continued their work.
A teammate consoles Shiffrin.Robert F. Bukaty/The Associated Press
Shiffrin was there for more than 20 minutes. I don’t care how thermal your suit is. That’s a long time to sit in the snow.
Her eventual interview with NBC, the network that has spent the past four years pumping Shiffrin’s tires to the point of bursting, was a portrait of misery.
Clearly crying under her mask, unable to string whole sentences together, Shiffrin tried explaining what had happened. Asked if she “second-guessed” herself – the sort of bad question that sometimes elicits good answers – Shiffrin shrugged inconsolably.
“Pretty much everything makes me second-guess, like, the last 15 years, everything I thought I knew about my own skiing and slalom and racing mentality.”
Oh.
Shiffrin in action at the slalom event. 'I’m not going to cry about this, because that’s just wasting energy,' she said of her performance.Robert F. Bukaty/The Associated Press
How did someone who’s won two Olympic golds (2014 and 2018) and more World Cup slalom races (47) than most people have seen on TV end up here?
Shiffrin is the human fulcrum where great talent meets huge expectation.
As the weight of the latter increases, it gets progressively more difficult to maintain contact with the former.
Some athletes have the advantage of competing in automatic sports, ones that involve muscle memory and very little need of volitional thought. Michael Phelps (to whom Shiffrin has often, and wrongly, been compared) jumps in the pool and goes.
The pool never changes. Same distance and just as wet every time.
Every downhill ski course is different. It forces you to think. Once you add the Olympics into your mental process, forget about it. Seriously. Just try forgetting about it. It’s hard.
Shiffrin skis to the finish line.Denis Balibouse/Reuters
For an athlete of Shiffrin’s stature, there is another level of pressure. People need something to talk about. If you win, you’re it. If you don’t win, more’s the better.
NBC hired Shiffrin’s professional frenemy, Lindsey Vonn, to do commentary here.
Ahead of her run on Wednesday, Vonn said, “This is a must-medal situation for Mikaela. The stakes could not be higher.” And here’s Vonn afterward (on Twitter): “Gutted for [Shiffrin] but this doesn’t not take away from her storied career and what she can and will accomplish going forward.”
So which is it? Must-medal or shrug it off?
In sports TV Land, it’s both. They pile a bunch of crap on you, enough to crush any normal person. When you fold up under the pressure they created, they give you a pass. Some creative contrarian with access to a keyboard says that, actually, you are a loser (despite all those other wins). That allows the TV people – again, the ones who created a lot of this mess – to come rushing in with their dukes up ready to fight anybody who isn’t Team Shiffrin all the way.
If that push-pull gets too boring, or if you’re mean in an interview after having your spirit yanked out of your body, your TV friends will switch to Team Anyone But Shiffrin (ask Ryan Lochte). Twenty years later, they’ll do a 30 for 30 about how abominably you were treated by the media.
Shiffrin leaves the finish area.Luca Bruno/The Associated Press
How do you disassemble this carousel of unfairness?
Are you kidding me? You don’t. Few things in the media business work so well to the mutual benefit of all involved.
Remember the last time you watched a World Cup slalom race? I’m just kidding. You’ve never watched one.
You don’t watch those races, but you may watch the one in Beijing for the same reason that a once-in-a-generation athlete like Shiffrin is so gutted after overshooting a single gate in a career littered with thousands of them. Because this one matters more.
Shiffrin’s job isn’t skiing. It’s skiing so well that people want to watch her do it. That desire is rendered monetary through the steady application of media hype.
This is what is missing from the new discussion about athletes and pressure.
If there is no pressure, there may be fewer unhappy elite athletes. But there may be fewer elite athletes period, because people have stopped caring. Without risk, there are only limited rewards.
It’s possible you still don’t know much about Mikaela Shiffrin or skiing. But if you’ve seen Wednesday’s clip, you’re invested now. You probably want this remarkably successful, super wealthy, impossibly privileged rock star to make it all right with a win.
You may want that so much that you make a space in your day to watch it. A small percentage of those people may end up being so captivated that they end up following the pro ski circuit after the Olympics ends.
That’s how this sports racket works. Sure, it’s powered by triumph. But it runs just as smoothly, maybe better, on tears.
How does Olympic alpine skiing work? A visual guide
BEIJING 2022
SCHEDULE
Qualification
Medal
FEBRUARY
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Alpine skiing is one of the signature events at the Winter Olympics, with athletes flying down the mountain at breathtaking speeds. Olympic skiers can reach speeds of 128 to 150 kph as the crouching position allows racers to minimise air resistance.
Men’s and women’s Alpine skiing debuted at Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 with the Alpine Combined event comprising of a downhill and a slalom run
All competitors must wear a crash helmet for the race
Racing suit
Goggles
Gloves
Gate
Shin guards
Skis with
ski brakes
Ski poles to guide turns, help skier maintain balance
COMPETITION FORMAT
Against-the-clock format, competitors attempt to cross the finish line in the fastest time
TECHNICAL EVENTS
Each skier completes two courses – not revealed until raceday – with no practice runs. The winner is the skier with the quickest combined times.
Slalom
Giant Slalom
Gate width
4m-6m
Gates
45-75
Gate width
4m-8m
Gates
28-68
Elevation/
vertical
drop
Gate
distance
0.75m-13m
Gate
distance
Min. 10m
Men
180-220
Men
300-450
Women
140-200
Women
300-400
ELEVATION DROP — IN METRES
SPEED EVENTS
Skiers make a single run, with the quickest time taking gold. Speeds reach 130-160 kph. Downhill practice runs are not only allowed but required
Super-G
Downhill
Gates delineate racing line
Gate width
6m-12m
Gates
28-45
Open gate
Closed
gate
Gate
distance
Min. 25m
Gate
width
Min. 8m
Men
400-650
Men
800-1,100
Women
400-600
Women
450-800
ELEVATION DROP — IN METRES
OTHER EVENTS
Alpine Combined
Consists of a Downhill run followed by Slalom
Competitors must complete a successful downhill run to advance to the Slalom run
Mixed Team Parallel
Teams comprise two men and two women
Two teams compete simultaneously against each other in a parallel slalom race
SOURCE: REUTERS
BEIJING 2022
SCHEDULE
Qualification
Medal
FEBRUARY
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Alpine skiing is one of the signature events at the Winter Olympics, with athletes flying down the mountain at breathtaking speeds. Olympic skiers can reach speeds of 128 to 150 kph as the crouching position allows racers to minimise air resistance.
Men’s and women’s Alpine skiing debuted at Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 with the Alpine Combined event comprising of a downhill and a slalom run
All competitors must wear a crash helmet for the race
Racing suit
Goggles
Gloves
Gate
Shin guards
Skis with
ski brakes
Ski poles to guide turns, help skier maintain balance
COMPETITION FORMAT
Against-the-clock format, competitors attempt to cross the finish line in the fastest time
TECHNICAL EVENTS
Each skier completes two courses – not revealed until raceday – with no practice runs. The winner is the skier with the quickest combined times.
Slalom
Giant Slalom
Gate width
4m-6m
Gates
45-75
Gate width
4m-8m
Gates
28-68
Elevation/
vertical
drop
Gate
distance
0.75m-13m
Gate
distance
Min. 10m
Men
180-220
Women
140-200
Men
300-450
Women
300-400
ELEVATION DROP — IN METRES
SPEED EVENTS
Skiers make a single run, with the quickest time taking gold. Speeds reach 130-160 kph. Downhill practice runs are not only allowed but required
Super-G
Downhill
Gate width
6m-12m
Gates
28-45
Gates delineate racing line
Open gate
Closed
gate
Gate
distance
Min. 25m
Gate
width
Min. 8m
Men
400-650
Men
800-1,100
Women
400-600
Women
450-800
ELEVATION DROP — IN METRES
OTHER EVENTS
Alpine Combined
Consists of a Downhill run followed by Slalom
Competitors must complete a successful downhill run to advance to the Slalom run
Mixed Team Parallel
Teams comprise two men and two women
Two teams compete simultaneously against each other in a parallel slalom race
SOURCE: REUTERS
BEIJING 2022
FEBRUARY
SCHEDULE
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Qualification
Medal
Alpine skiing is one of the signature events at the Winter Olympics, with athletes flying down the mountain at breathtaking speeds. Olympic skiers can reach speeds of 128 to 150 kph as the crouching position allows racers to minimise air resistance.
Men’s and women’s Alpine skiing debuted at Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 with the Alpine Combined event comprising of a downhill and a slalom run
Ski poles to guide turns,
help skier maintain
balance
All competitors must
wear a crash helmet
for the race
Racing
suit
Goggles
Gate
Gloves
Shin guards
Skis with ski brakes
COMPETITION FORMAT
Against-the-clock format, competitors attempt to cross the finish line in the fastest time
TECHNICAL EVENTS
Each skier completes two courses – not revealed until raceday – with no practice runs. The winner is the skier with the quickest combined times.
SPEED EVENTS
Skiers make a single run, with the quickest time taking gold. Speeds reach 130-160 kph. Downhill practice runs are not only allowed but required
Super-G
Downhill
Slalom
Giant Slalom
Gate width
6m-12m
Gates
28-45
Gate width
4m-6m
Gates
45-75
Gate width
4m-8m
Gates
28-68
Gates delineate racing line
Open gate
Elevation/
vertical
drop
Closed
gate
Gate
distance
Min. 25m
Gate
width
Min. 8m
Gate
distance
0.75m-13m
Gate
distance
Min. 10m
Men
400-650
Men
800-1,100
Women
400-600
Women
450-800
Men
180-220
Women
140-200
Men
300-450
Women
300-400
ELEVATION DROP — IN METRES
ELEVATION DROP — IN METRES
OTHER EVENTS
Alpine Combined
Mixed Team Parallel
Consists of a Downhill run followed by Slalom
Competitors must complete a successful downhill run to advance to the Slalom run
Teams comprise two men and two women
Two teams compete simultaneously against each other in a parallel slalom race
SOURCE: REUTERS
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