Mikaela Shiffrin's seventh straight missed Olympic medal was a stunner. Now the pressure is really on in Italy

One of the most interesting and compelling competitions at the 2026 Winter Olympics is the team combined alpine skiing contest, a new discipline for the Milan Cortina Games. It's a great upgrade. The duo-oriented event features one skier barreling through the downhill and the other zig-zagging in the slalom. The lowest combined time after both races gets the gold. This team concept with these two races has never been in the Olympics before and figures to be one of the must-see attractions in future Games. 

With that as the backdrop, the setup was ideal in Italy for the United States and, in particular, for Breezy Johnson and American skiing superstar Mikaela Shiffrin. Johnson, who already won gold in women's downhill (in the same race that saw Lindsey Vonn's frightening crash), took to the mountain in Cortina D'Ampezzo Tuesday morning and came through again, finishing with the fastest time (1:36.59).

Johnson's impressive push set up what was expected to be a shoo-in medal for her and Shiffrin, likely gold.

But ski racing is won and lost on tiny, icy margins and there is no guarantee, ever, that the favorites will come through. That axiom proved true again for Shiffrin on Tuesday. The 30-year-old was too inhibited out of the gate and then oddly stiff down her slalom run. Ultimately, she was incapable of maintaining the lead Johnson provided after the downhill portion. 

Shockingly, Shiffrin delivered the 15th-slowest time (45.38 seconds) of the 18 slalom skiers, which pushed Johnson/Shiffrin to a fourth-place finish, .06 seconds behind fellow Americans Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan, who took bronze. (Austria's Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber took gold, Germany's Kira Weidle-Winkelmann and Emma Aicher earned silver.)

"During my run I had a feeling that I wasn't getting my groove as well as -- sometimes, there's a feeling -- and I was trying to reset every turn and bring in more," Shiffrin told NBC Sports afterward, adding that there were "so, so many positive things about the day, and I didn't really live up to that."

She also admitted her comfort level wasn't where she wanted it to be for this race.

Credit to Shiffrin for quickly taking to social media and congratulating Wiles and Motzan, by the way. A classy showing amid undeniable disappointment. That said, this is a bit worrying for someone as talented as Shiffrin. 

It's strange to see the best and most accomplished female skier in history tighten up again on the biggest stage, but that speaks to the pressure of the Olympics. The world is watching, as every athlete is all too aware of, and you have to be ready for anything in order to win everything. Any mistake -- or a chain of tiny ones -- will push you off the medal stand. 

"We asked for a miracle and I think we were delivered one," Wiles told the press after securing bronze. "I think if you let Mikaela go run that course ... I think she'd come down in the lead by at least a second." 

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The good: Shiffrin finished without missing a gate. She got down the course in an Olympic event on Tuesday. Mentally, that's important. Her 2022 Beijing experience was a bizarre battle of mind versus body. Shiffrin had three DNFs and three non-podium finishes in China, failing to medal after being billed as the biggest American star of those Games. 

The bad: Shiffrin finishing 15th out of 18 skiers in her best event is almost inexplicable. This type of run was hard to imagine even after the regrettable 2022 no-show. It's her worst finish (that isn't a DNF) in almost 14 years.

Most reading this may not realize it, but Shiffrin and Johnson won the 2025 world championships in this event. They've proven they can be the best in the world. Plus, Shiffrin bounced back well from Beijing in recent years, upping her record to 108 World Cup wins to go with eight world championship titles, plus two golds and a silver from previous Olympics. She has 71 victories in slalom alone, the most in history.

Shiffrin suffered a scary puncture wound to her abdomen while competing in 2024, but even after that she won more races. She is quite literally the best and most accomplished slalom skier ever. 

To finish 15th? What?

She has now failed to medal in seven consecutive Olympic races. Rarely does an all-time great in an individual sport fail to meet the moment so many times in a row like this. 

Thankfully, it's not her last shot.

Shiffrin has two more opportunities to medal. She'll ski in the giant slalom on Sunday, then return to the slalom course next Wednesday. Her Cortina story is still very much to be determined, but Tuesday's slip-up raises the stakes and anxiety around these Games for the biggest remaining star still competing on behalf of Team USA.

Call it jitters, call it whatever you'd like, but Shiffrin's mental battle again seems to be creeping out of her head and manifesting in Olympic snow. She's as gracious in defeat as she is spectacular in victory; it's time for her to remember the latter as much as she's able to show the former. How Shiffrin readies herself for her next race on Sunday will be critical to salvaging these Games and upping her legacy among the all-time great Olympians in United States history.

After Johnson put Shiffrin in quite literally the best position possible, most assumed she would return to form. And then she failed. As a result, now there's actual pressure on Shiffrin to go out and do something she hasn't had to do or feel in a long time: prove to everyone she's still the best skier in the world.