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Mikaela Shiffrin revealed Tuesday that she will run downhill for the first time at the Winter Olympics. And, as she prepares for her fourth event in Beijing, she says she is revising her perspective on what is at stake.
“It’ll be great to race tomorrow. But you don’t come to the Olympics to feel wonderful, do you? “Shiffrin remarked after finishing Monday’s second training session on The Rock at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center with the 15th-fastest time among women who did not miss a gate. “It’s going to be intense and a little nerve-racking, for sure.”
“It was excellent to get some rest, recuperation, and a little bit of a strength training in to get the muscle primed,” she added.
The two-time gold medalist in Alpine skiing failed not to complete her starting runs in either of her first two races, the two-leg giant slalom and slalom, before finishing tenth in the super-G, a race she had never competed in before.
As someone who specialized in the technical disciplines of slalom and giant slalom, Shiffrin’s involvement in the speed events of downhill and super-G is still in its early stages.
She has 47 World Cup victories in slalom, more than any other competitor, and 14 in giant slalom, as well as four in super-G and two in downhill.
And, while she said, “there’s always some part of you that’s thinking, ‘Maybe there’s a possibility,'” when it came to finishing in the top three on Tuesday, Shiffrin provided some new insight into her mind.
“I’m no longer focused on the medal. It’s just a matter of doing my best every day. In any case, that’s my greatest chance for a medal. So it’s a bit of a contradiction… that your greatest chance of having that performance is to stop thinking about it and focus on what you’re doing at that moment “Shiffrin, 26 years old, stated. “So I’m just trying to be in the moment, especially on the downhill.”
Aside from that, the time she spent at that race could aid her in Thursday’s Alpine combined, which combines the times from one downhill run and one slalom run. At the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, she won silver in the combined.
