When Mikaela Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic champion and ski racing’s most dominant figure for several years, fell on Monday and made an early exit from the women’s giant slalom at the Beijing Olympics, it seemed an anomaly, a glitch that will happen on steeply pitched mountains in slippery conditions.
But Wednesday, Shiffrin did not finish her second race and again lasted only scant seconds before skidding off the course. This time it was her best event, the slalom. She ended up on the side of the trail, where she quickly ditched her skis and poles, sat down in the snow and buried her head between her bent knees. She remained there for more than 20 minutes as her rivals whizzed past.
Nothing in Shiffrin’s professional career would have portended such…
