(Yanqing) “I had a lot of disappointments at these Games, but today […] is my best memory, “said Mikaela Shiffrin on Sunday, who left the Beijing Olympics without a medal after the 4and place of the Americans during the team parallel.
Updated yesterday at 10:58 p.m.
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, acknowledging 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 a double Olympic champion (slalom in 2014 and giant in 2018), the skier from Colorado came off the track in slalom, giant and combined, and took the 9and place of the super-G and the 18and of the descent.
“Skiing with such strong teammates was the best way for me to finish these Games […] They deserve to know how much I love them and how much I wanted to help and have the potential to win a medal,” she said.
Reflecting on her candor after her failures, when she spent up to 45 minutes analyzing her slalom outing with reporters in the icy air, she joked: “Maybe I don’t have any filters. Maybe I need more.”
“I think I know less about myself than three weeks ago. The older I get, the less I know. You think you have understood something, then you move forward a little in life and you say to yourself: “No, this theory is wrong, let’s try another one”, she philosophized.