US skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin had her dreams of winning an Olympic medal dashed on Sunday, after Norway beat Team USA in the small final of the mixed team parallel.
Norway took the bronze in the final alpine event of the Winter Olympics, with the US in fourth.
The event tops an upsetting Olympics for Shiffrin, who on Thursday was left reeling from a third did-not-finish (DNF) at the Games.
She arrived at the Winter Olympics looking to win a third consecutive gold at a Games, but after crashing out of the alpine combined event, the 26-year-old suffered 60% of her career DNF’s at the National Alpine Skiing Centre this month.
Shiffrin had already failed to finish in her favorite disciplines — the slalom and giant slalom — earlier in the Games, events that had reaped gold at Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 respectively.
Going into the mixed team event and after her alpine combined upset, Shiffrin said: “It’s really strange, but I’m not even afraid of that right now, and maybe it’s because I don’t have any emotional energy to give any more.”
But it’s not all bad for Shiffrin: By competing in the mixed team event, she became only the second woman to race all six alpine skiing events at the Winter Olympics.
