The new team combined format made its Olympic debut Tuesday at the Milan Cortina Games, and Austria walked away with gold thanks to Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber.
Germany‘s Emma Aicher and Kira Weidle-Winkelmann claimed silver, while Americans Jackie Wiles and Paula Motlzan took bronze.
Notably absent from the podium were Mikaela Shiffrin and Breezy Johnson, who finished fourth despite Johnson delivering the fastest downhill time of the day. The result means Shiffrin‘s quest for her first Olympic medal since 2018 continues, extending a drought that has now spanned three Winter Games.
Johnson had done everything asked of her. The 30-year-old, already riding high from her downhill gold medal won over the weekend, attacked the mountain Tuesday morning with confidence and precision. She finished 0.06 seconds ahead of Austria‘s Raedler, handing Shiffrin a slim but workable lead heading into the slalom portion.
The course itself behaved better than it had days earlier when Lindsey Vonn crashed and suffered a broken left leg that required helicopter evacuation. Johnson acknowledged that fear before her run but managed to push it aside.
“I didn’t feel so worried that I was going to blow out, which was my biggest fear today,” Johnson said. “And then I just was like, ‘Let’s have some fun. Let’s ski relaxed and free.’ And I feel like I did that.”
Slalom struggles doom American medal hopes
Shiffrin couldn’t match her teammate’s dominance when her turn came. The slalom specialist, oddly, struggled to find any rhythm on the technical course. Her run ranked only 15th fastest, more than a full second behind Aicher‘s time. That gap proved insurmountable given the tight margins at the top of the leaderboard.
“I didn’t quite find a comfort level that allows me to produce full speed,” Shiffrin admitted afterward. “So I’m going to have to learn what to do, what to adjust in the short time we have before the other tech races.”
The 30-year-old was careful not to make sweeping excuses for the disappointing performance, noting she’s been well prepared for slalom competitions all season long. Something went wrong Tuesday that she’ll need to diagnose quickly, with individual giant slalom and slalom events still on her schedule.
“I want to be careful not to make excuses because it’s not really an excuse,” Shiffrin said. “I’ve been so prepared for all the slaloms this year. So there’s something to learn from this day. And I’m going to learn it.”
Shiffrin‘s Olympic history tells a story of early dominance followed by recent frustration. The Colorado native won slalom gold at Sochi 2014 when she was barely out of her teens. Four years later in PyeongChang, she added giant slalom gold and alpine combined silver. Then came Beijing 2022, where she competed in six events without reaching the podium even once.