Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States races in the mixed team parallel skiing event Sunday at the Winter Olympics. Shiffrin will go home without a medal after the U.S. lost to Norway on a tiebreaker in the bronze medal match. Luca Bruno/Associated Press
BEIJING — Mikaela Shiffrin and the American mixed ski team missed out on a medal by 0.42 seconds, losing in the bronze matchup in a tiebreaker in the final Alpine ski event of the Beijing Olympics.
The top-ranked Austrians won gold in the Winter Games’ second iteration of the mixed team parallel event, beating Germany in the final on a tiebreaker.
The U.S. primarily used Shiffrin on the slower of the parallel courses, and she lost three of her four heats, including in the bronze matchup against Norway. Teammate River Radamus delivered the win the U.S. needed in the last heat to force a 2-2 tie, but he wasn’t fast enough to tilt the tiebreaker – combined times of the fastest man and woman – to the Americans’ favor.
Austria also tied in the final against the Germans, but Stefan Brennsteiner and Katharina Liensberger took their heats in a faster combined time than Lena Duerr and Alexander Schmid. Austra took silver in the event’s debut at Pyeongchang four years ago.
Shiffrin, a two-time gold medalist, went 0 for 5 in her bid for an individual medal in Beijing. She only reached the finish line at two individual events, coming in ninth in the super-G and 18th in the downhill, her two worst disciplines. She only lasted about five gates in giant slalom, five gates in the slalom and 10 in the slalom portion of the two-leg combined.
“I would say that my teammates are what carried me through this Olympics,” she said after the team event, before turning to her teammates. “These are my absolute favorite memories. I just want to say thank you for that.”
The 26-year-old Shiffrin easily managed the giant slalom course in the first round and beat Slovakia’s Rebeka Jancova – one of few victories by skiers on the slower red course. Radamus and Paula Moltzan won their heats by even larger margins as the U.S. advanced.
Shiffrin lost her quarterfinal from the red slope against Italy’s Marta Bassino by 2 hundredths of a second. The sixth-seeded Americans still advanced with a 3-1 upset of the third seed.
Shiffrin again went down the slower red course in the semifinals and was narrowly beaten by Germany’s Lena Duerr. Radamus won his heat, and Moltzan looked set to put the U.S. up 2-1 on the faster blue course before slipping with three gates left. Her opponent, Emma Aicher, also fell, but she earned Germany the point by making it just slightly further down the hill.
Tommy Ford was then unable to win from the red course, dropping the Americans into the bronze match.
The mixed team event was postponed a day after gusts at up to about 40 mph kept skiers off the slopes Saturday. Shiffrin and most of the U.S. team had been scheduled to fly out of China early Sunday but changed their plans to remain in the team event. Many skiers were likely eager to depart with the World Cup circuit resuming next weekend, with the women in Switzerland and the men in Germany.
Conditions were calmer Sunday, with gusts reaching around 25 mph, but temperatures dipped to minus-3 degrees. Skiers huddled at the bottom of the course in white comforters they apparently brought from their rooms.
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