Corinne Suter of Switzerland wins gold in Olympic downhill skiing.

After two star-crossed, error-prone opening performances at the Beijing Olympics, Mikaela Shiffrin’s second act in China has been a measured return to proficiency. On Tuesday, in the women’s downhill, an Olympic event Shiffrin had never entered, she finished 18th, a result that exhibited both a refurbished level of confidence and a lack of experience in the unique demands of the race.

Corinne Suter of Switzerland won the gold medal, edging the defending Olympic champion Sofia Goggia of Italy by .16 hundredths of a second. Goggia’s teammate Nadia Delago was .57 of a second behind Suter and claimed the bronze medal.

It was the first Olympic medal for Suter, 27, who is also the reigning downhill world champion. Suter has four World Cup victories, all in the speed disciplines of downhill and super-G. A two-time world junior champion, she made her debut on the World Cup circuit as a 17-year-old in 2011.

Shiffrin had a clean, smooth run but not one with the kind of fearless, aggressive speed necessary to win one of the signature events of the Alpine meet in the Olympic Games.

But Shiffrin, who has favored the shorter, less speedy technical events, has competed sparingly in the downhill since 2019 and not at all since early December of last year. And the downhill was considered the weakest of the five events that Shiffrin was expected to enter at the Beijing Games. Still, her result on Tuesday, coupled with a ninth place finish in the super-G Friday, should provide ample momentum for her chances in Thursday’s Alpine combined, an event in which Shiffrin will be a prohibitive favorite. The combined mixes one run of downhill and one run of slalom and Shiffrin’s level of accomplishment in both should make her tough to beat. It will be her last individual event of the Beijing Olympics.

Shiffrin’s run on Tuesday started well and she was linking her turns with the kind of silky, light touch on the snow that has been her trademark. But as the pitch grew steeper and her speed picked up, Shiffrin’s skis were bouncing in the bumpy terrain. Thrown a bit off course, she fell farther and farther behind.

Of Shiffrin’s 73 World Cup career victories, only two have been in the downhill, the last in January 2020 and the other in 2017. In her last two downhills in December, she finished 38th and 26th.

In her first two races at the 2022 Winter Games last week, Shiffrin fell in the opening seconds of the giant slalom and slalom, her two best events.

A few weeks ago, Goggia was not expected to be healthy enough to race in Tuesday’s downhill. On Jan. 23, she lost control of her skis in a World Cup super-G and tumbled down the racecourse. She struggled to get to her feet with a sprained left knee and other bruises. She vowed to be ready for the Beijing Games downhill, and despite limited on-snow preparation, she made a spirited defense of her Olympic crown.

While her technique was a little ragged, Goggia, who is known for her attacking style, charged through a fearless run to take the race lead just after Shiffrin had raced. But Suter, starting two spots after Goggia, had the smoother, more consistent overall run, with the fastest times in two of four timed intervals and the second fastest in the field in the two other timed intervals.