6:20 a.m.: Shiffrin happy to have pushed her plane back 24 hours anyway
“I had a lot of disappointments at these Games, but today (…) is my best memory,” said Sunday Mikaela Shiffrin, who leaves without a medal from the Beijing Olympics after the 4th place of the Americans during the parallel by teams.
The American skier, leading the big globe race, delayed her return flight to maintain her participation in the event, postponed 24 hours due to violent gusts on Saturday. “I decided to stay because I wanted to compete with my teammates. I couldn’t imagine giving up,” explained the 26-year-old champion, finally beaten with her family by Norway in the small final.
Shiffrin, accepting the extra fatigue before a decisive end to the World Cup season, explained that the American skiers had supported her “incredibly” during these nightmarish Games for her. Aligned in the five individual events, already double Olympic champion (slalom in 2014 and giant in 2018), the skier from Colorado left the track in slalom, giant and combined, and took 9th place in the super-G and 18th in the lowering.