Michelle Gisin Wins Alpine Combined Gold; Mikaela Shiffrin Eliminated After DNF | Bleacher Report
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AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati
The final individual gold medal for alpine skiing at the 2022 Beijing Olympics belongs to Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin.
Gisin defended her title and won the women’s alpine combined, featuring one downhill run and one slalom run, with a time of 2:25.67 on Wednesday. She was joined by Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener (2:26.72 for silver) and Italy’s Federica Brignone (2:27.52 for bronze) on the medal podium.
Mikaela Shiffrin was in position to challenge for her first medal of the Games after a strong showing in the downhill, but she skied out during the slalom portion in another disappointing outing.
While she is already one of the all-time greats at 26 years old, she did not finish in the slalom or giant slalom either, before placing 18th in downhill and ninth in Super G.
She has received plenty of support even in defeat and figured to compete for a medal Wednesday since she took home silver in the combined event in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
It felt like the medal was coming after downhill.
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1 race down, 1 more to go!<br><br>Mikaela Shiffrin currently sits in third in the downhill of the women’s alpine combined. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/WinterOlympics?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#WinterOlympics</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/WatchWithUS?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#WatchWithUS</a><br><br>? <a href=”https://twitter.com/nbc?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@nbc</a> and <a href=”https://twitter.com/peacockTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@peacockTV</a><br>? <a href=”https://t.co/muRHLBCyRd”>https://t.co/muRHLBCyRd</a> <a href=”https://t.co/Ggip47blsy”>pic.twitter.com/Ggip47blsy</a>
While she didn’t come close to medaling in the downhill competition, it was clear the experience she picked up was key when she finished fifth in that portion. Combine that with her ability in the other half of the combined event as the 2014 gold medalist in slalom and 2018 gold medalist in giant slalom, and Shiffrin was suddenly a threat to Gisin.
Gisin entered the alpine combined as the defending Olympic champion, and she already took home the bronze in the Super G in Beijing. Fellow Swiss competitor Holdener was also on the shortlist of contenders as a four-time Olympic medalist who took home bronze in this year’s slalom and in this event in 2018.
The mission for Gisin, Holdener and all the contenders was to have a healthy lead over Shiffrin after the downhill given the American’s prowess in slalom, but both Swiss representatives were behind her after the first half.
In fact, everyone but Austria’s Christine Scheyer, Czech Republic’s Ester Ledecka, Austria’s Ramona Siebenhofer and France’s Romane Miradoli were ahead of Shiffrin after an impressive downhill run that put her in position to challenge for gold.
Alas, the slalom was a problem once again for the American star.
That cleared the way for Gisin, Holdener and Brignone to win the medals.
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