CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Austria’s Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber won gold in the women’s Alpine team combined Tuesday at the Milan-Cortina Olympics after Mikaela Shiffrin finished 15th in the slalom portion of the event.
Shiffrin’s teammate, Breezy Johnson, finished first in the downhill portion, but Shiffrin’s performance in the slalom pushed the pair down to fourth place.
Germany’s Kira Weidle-Winkelmann and Emma Aicher won silver and the U.S. duo of Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan took the bronze medal.
Johnson held up her end of the bargain. Two days after winning gold in the women’s downhill, she tore through the same Olimpia della Tofane course in 1:36.59 to post the fastest time in the downhill portion of the event.
That put teammate Shiffrin in prime position to anchor the U.S. in the slalom portion, which was set up on the same slope. But Shiffrin put in a tentative performance and finished with a time 45.38 seconds in a race that featured 10 skiers failing to finish. Johnson and Shiffrin finished 0.31 of a second behind the winners.
“It’s both the most and least pressure that you ever feel as a racer,” said Johnson before Shiffrin’s race. “It’s the most because we as racers intimately know what it is to have an Olympic dream, and to hold somebody else’s in your hand and try to ski fast with it is a lot of pressure.
“But then also to have somebody else be able to carry the torch halfway and not have to do the whole thing yourself makes it the least pressure.”
Shiffrin, the most decorated skier in history, earned her 108th career World Cup victory in December and clinched her ninth career Crystal Globe, presented to racers who win season-long titles on the World Cup circuit. That set a record for most discipline globe titles won by an individual athlete. That surpassed Lindsey Vonn and Ingemar Stenmark, both with eight.
Wiles finished fourth in the downhill session, 0.45 seconds off the lead, setting up Moltzan, who had a time of 44.87 in the slalom to finish 0.25 of a second off first overall.
Isabella Wright, also of the U.S., missed the second gate and did not finish the downhill, ending the day for her and Nina O’Brien, who was supposed to race in the afternoon.
“Definitely bummed,” Wright said. “I feel mostly bad for my teammate, Nina. That’s definitely the hard part. I was really looking forward to cheering her on in the slalom.”
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