America’s Mikaela Shiffrin crashes out of slalom after nightmare Olympics run

Mikaela Shiffrin’s Winter Olympics nightmare continued as she crashed out of the women’s slalom at Yanqing on Wednesday.

The 26-year-old US star missed a gate early in her run, two days after she suffered a similar fate in the women’s giant-slalom.

Shiffrin, the overall World Cup leader who boasts 73 all-time alpine World Cup wins, had arrived in China targeting medals in five events.

Shiffrin said: “I was pushing out of the start. I had full intentions of skiing as hard as I could.

“I slipped up a little bit on one turn and I just didn’t give myself room to make any kind of error like that. I was planning to go on the most aggressive line, the most challenging line to ski.

“(I feel) pretty awful. But it won’t last for ever. I just feel pretty low right now.”

Prior to her giant-slalom setback, Shiffrin had failed to finish a race only twice in four years, and only 13 times in her 228-career World Cup starts.

Shiffrin, who sat by the side of the course for some time after her disqualification, still has a chance to become the first US skier to win three gold medals at the same Games.