“I’ve never been in this position before, and I don’t know how to handle it,” Mikaela Shiffrin said on Wednesday (Feb. 9), after the 26-year-old alpine skier was disqualified from her second race in a row at the 2022 Beijing Olympic games. Thankfully, Mikaela doesn’t have to handle it alone. After Mikaela suffered that heartbreak on the slopes, Lindsey Vonn rallied around her fellow skier. “Gutter for [Mikaela],” Lindsey, 37, tweeted, “but this does not take away from her storied career and what she can and will accomplish going forward. Keep your head up high. [heart emoji]”
🤍🤍🤍 @MikaelaShiffrin
— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) February 9, 2022
With the increased awareness of the mental strain that Olympic athletes endure during these games, the public response to Mikaela’s disqualification wasn’t disappointment but encouragement and support. Simone Biles – who prioritized her own mental health and pulled out of events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — joined in to offer love and encouragement to Mikaela. Simone, 24, tweeted a string of silver hearts to Mikaela, letting her know that she was not alone in this journey. Track star Gabby Thomas also tweeted that Mikaela has “so much to be proud of” and that she’s an “inspiration for all of us. Keep going [silver heart.].”
On Monday (Feb. 6), Mikaela crashed 11 seconds into the opening run of the giant slalom. As the defending gold medalist, the “Did Not Finish” result weighed heavily. “I won’t ever get over this,” she said after the disappointing results, per ESPN, adding that she’s “never gotten over any” times that she’s fallen or failed to finish a race. On Wednesday, Mikaela skidded out of control and missed a gate five seconds into the slalom race, earning her second DNF. “It makes me second-guess the last 15 years, everything I thought I knew about my own skiing and slalom and racing mentality,” she said afterward while fighting tears, according to ESPN. “Just processing a lot, for sure.”
“It feels like a really big letdown,” she later said. “My entire career has taught me to trust in my skiing if it’s good skiing. And that’s all that I have to rely on these race days. And when the pressure is high, of course, the pressure is high, but that didn’t feel like the biggest issue today.” Mikaela also raised some questions about whether she will continue to compete in this year’s games. “I’ll try to reset again, and maybe try to reset better this time,” she added. “But I also don’t know how to do it better because I’ve never been in this position before, and I don’t know how to handle it.”