The focus nearly four years ago on the side of a Russian mountain, as the final sled whooshed by, fell to the clock. Park City’s Katie Uhlaender, a blue-blooded American who had died her hair red for the Sochi Olympics, stared at it. Her eyes squinted.
A Russian skeleton athlete named Elena Nikitina slid down the track that night 30-something miles northeast of Sochi, in her home country. Nikitina's cumulative time over four runs beat Uhlaender's by four hundredths of a second. That night, Nikitina won bronze, and smiled. That night, Uhlaender won nothing, and cried.
Uhlaender is 33 and is preparing for what she realizes is almost certainly her last Olympics.