Mikaela Shiffrin will ski the downhill Tuesday for the first time at an Olympic Games, a decision that she and her coaches made after a second successful training run Monday at the Yanqing National Alpine Center.
Shiffrin, one of the world’s best skiers, had a forgettable first week at the Olympics. She failed to finish her first two events, after entering as one of the favorites for gold, and was ninth in the super-G on Friday. While the first two results left Shiffrin pondering her continued participation at one point, she was buoyed by her finish on Friday.
Still, a start in the downhill, her weakest event, seemed unlikely.
But Shiffrin turned in the second fastest training run for a U.S. skier, behind Jacqueline Wiles, and the 17th fastest overall, on a bright and chilly day on the mountain that was far different than Sunday, when a snowstorm forced the cancellation of a scheduled training run on the downhill course.
“We had a day of rest and recovery in this 17-day block that was unplanned and was actually really nice,” Shiffrin said shortly after completing her practice run.
Shiffrin came to the Olympics favored to win medals in multiple events. But she was disqualified in the giant slalom and slalom races last week. She finished ninth in the super-G on Friday, and was happy just to get over the finish line for the first time in Beijing.
Shiffrin has won downhill races on the World Cup but she has never won a World Championship downhill. She had hoped to enter the downhill in the 2018 Olympics but changes in the schedule caused by bad weather forced her to abandon that plan. One of her goals in Beijing was to race in all five individual events, and competing in the downhill would keep her on track for that.
It also will give her a chance to prepare for the downhill segment of the combined event, which includes runs of downhill and slalom. Shiffrin won the silver in that event in 2018.
She had one other event planned on Monday. Shiffrin’s boyfriend, the Norwegian skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, a two-time medalist at these Olympics, was waiting for her to join him in the Olympic Village for Valentine’s Day.
“We can’t really do anything,” Shiffrin said. “Maybe we will go to dinner and eat with one of those plastic dividers separating us.”
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