Shiffrin pulls out of downhill at Pyeongchang Olympics

American Lindsey Vonn also struggled this morning, and failed to medal in her first Olympic event in Pyeongchang.

“I think she had a pretty good run so she deserved it”.

I’ve tried not to think of it as my last Olympic downhill, just focus on the moment, the right here and the right now.

A day after becoming, at age 18, the youngest Olympic slalom champion during the 2014 Sochi Games, Shiffrin announced at a news conference: ‘Right now, I’m dreaming of the next Olympics (and) winning five gold medals, which sounds really insane.

Such was her pace, the 25-year-old’s time of in 1:39.22 was 0.47 seconds better than Vonn’s effort and 0.09 seconds faster than Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel who took silver. She came into the Olympic world as an American skier that was hopeful to have some kind of major impact. And when she reaches the finish line, a golden but tumultuous Olympic career will likely be over.

Vonn again touched on the virulent Twitter backlash against her for her political opinions.

The organizers previously moved the schedules of the women’s slalom, giant slalom and the men’s downhill events due to adverse weather conditions.

“I actually didn’t want to win the training run today”, Vonn said on NBC. I remember when she won in Vancouver and I said “I wish I can be there racing at the top“.

Vonn will have another shot to medal in the downhill. After starting off with a gold medal in the giant slalom, she finished a surprising fourth in the slalom, her best event.

“But who knows, something will come out and they’ll fix my knee up and I’ll be like “Robo-knee” and be able to ski 10 more years, that would be ideal”.

“Four years ago where I thought I’d be coming into these Games I’m nowhere near that”, she said.

She said she isn’t letting nasty comments prevent her from enjoying what she has said will be her final Olympics.

Find out how Australia’s Greta Small did in the women’s super-G HERE. “I was asking her if it looked good and if I didn’t miss any gates”, she said.

“I love it when people who say things are guaranteed are shown that it isn’t guaranteed”, she laughed. Usually, I’m really chaotic but I wanted to take in every little detail, every particular in the morning. My teammates have really supported me and we’ve helped each other. Her Winter Olympics aren’t over.

The 33-year-old made a strong start on the icy slope but went wide on one turn and was four tenths of a second off the pace after the first four sections, leaving herself too much to do in the bottom part of the mountain.

She still has two more medal chances in the PyeongChang Games, in the downhill on Wednesday and the alpine combined on Friday.