Mikaela Shiffrin Will Skip Super-G Race Due to Compressed 2018 Olympics Schedule
Mikaela Shiffrin's pursuit of five gold medals at the Pyeongchang Games is over, as the giant slalom winner will skip Saturday’s Super-G event after two postponements led to a compressed skiing schedule for competitors.
"She will have raced and trained—or tried to race—for six days in a row," her mother and coach, Eileen Shiffrin, told Nancy Armour of USA Today. "She has to have a day off."
Shiffrin's mother said skipping the Super-G isn't a big deal, however.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
"It's not a big goal anyway," she noted. "We have speed girls who can race Super-G. She wanted to have a shot at the hill and see how she would stack up against the speed girls, and then the coaches would choose the fastest people to go. There's not even going to be an opportunity for her. We're just going to get her a day of rest and then go do the downhill and combined."
Shiffrin still has the slalom, downhill and combined on her schedule, leaving her the opportunity to come home with four golds. Shiffrin is the defending Olympic champion in the slalom and will be the favorite in that event, and she is expected to be on the podium for both the combined and downhill as well.
Her chances of participating in the Super-G came to an end after the weather caused the giant slalom to be postponed from Monday until Thursday and the slalom from Wednesday to Friday. With the Super-G on Saturday, Shiffrin was facing an intense slate of competition.
Shiffrin has previously mentioned the schedule changes have presented a new set of challenges to the competitors.
"Definitely, it's been a mental strain the last couple days, thinking we're going to race and then not racing," she said after winning the giant slalom on Thursday morning, per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN.com). "So to finally have the race actually happen today, I was like, 'Well, I really hope that I actually can do it when the time comes that we finally race.' And, yeah, I did. So now we got the ball rolling. I'm really excited for tomorrow."
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
