YANQING, China — For Mikaela Shiffrin, the most unexpected of Olympic journeys culminated just as it began: with one more crash, one more disqualification, one more frank assessment of a race she had lost instead of one she had won.
“Right now,” said Shiffrin, one of the most decorated skiers in history, “I just feel like a joke.”
Her comment, tinged with the emotional honesty that has marked so many of her self reviews over the past two weeks, came after yet another mangled run, this time in the Alpine combined, that ended with Shiffrin sliding out of a course on her hip.