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Mikaela Shiffrin’s unexpectedly long and torturous wait for her first medal of the Beijing Olympics has stretched nearly two weeks.
Another delay only seems fitting.
Shiffrin’s last hope at salvaging positivity in these games during the mixed team parallel slalom was rescued from serious doubt after strong winds postponed the event Saturday afternoon at the National Alpine Skiing Center in the Yanqing zone near Beijing.
It looked as if the event might become just the second to be canceled in the history of the Winter Olympics because of the time crunch before the closing ceremony, but it was rescheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern Saturday night (9 a.m. Sunday local time). If the event does take place, Shiffrin will at least become the second woman to compete in all six Alpine skiing events in the same Olympics.
Shiffrin’s best finish in her five individual races was ninth. If that wasn’t stunning enough, she failed to finish three events — giant slalom, slalom and Alpine combined — which are three of her best events, as proven by the two gold medals and a silver she won in past Olympics, dating to when she was an 18-year-old newcomer in the 2014 Sochi Games.
In recent days, the most accomplished skier of all time in any Alpine discipline said she felt like a “joke” and wondered aloud “if anybody has failed that hard, with so many opportunities, maybe in the history of the Olympics.” Shiffrin also cracked that she “should probably just quit” before the team event so as to not suffer any more hits, but she opted to join the Americans for the single-elimination competition unlike in 2018.
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As for the mixed team parallel slalom, it’s set up like the NCAA basketball Tournament, and is the only skiing race made up of teams and the only one combining men and women. Each country-against-country matchup includes four head-to-head races between skiers of the same gender. To advance, a team must either win at least three races or have the lowest combined time if a tiebreaker is needed.
The sixth-seeded United States team — a long shot for a medal — will be paired against No. 11 Slovakia in the first round.
Wind gusts up to 25 miles per hour and temperatures well below zero delayed the event for two hours before it was postponed. Since the last Olympics, Shiffrin had not finished once in 62 races. She is the world record-holder with 47 slalom skiing titles.
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