Mikaela Shiffrin was in position to contend for her first medal of the Beijing Olympics on Thursday in her fifth — and final — individual race after making it through the downhill leg of the Alpine combined.
The combined adds times from one downhill run and one slalom run.
The two-time Olympic champion was fifth fastest of the 26 entrants in the downhill, finishing in 1 minute, 32.98 seconds. That left her 0.56 seconds behind leader Christine Scheyer of Austria.
That deficit and placement should not be all that daunting for Shiffrin: Not only is there no one ahead of her who is nearly as accomplished a slalom skier as the 26-year-old American, but she also could take heart from what happened four years ago.
After the downhill portion of the combined at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, Shiffrin stood sixth and trailed teammate Lindsey Vonn by 1.98 seconds. But Shiffrin ended up coming away with the silver medal, between Swiss skiers Michelle Gisin (gold) and Wendy Holdener (bronze).
One key element this time, though: Shiffrin, expected to be one of the stars of the 2022 Games, only managed to make it through five gates in both the giant slalom and slalom last week, skiing out within seconds of the opening leg of each of those two-run races.
She then was ninth in the super-G and 18th in the downhill in her Olympic debuts in those races.
“I have to overcome the image that I am going to ski out on the fifth gate,” said Shiffrin, who also plans to enter the team event on Saturday. “I am just trying to stay calm, because I think I was doing pretty well with that this morning. Stay calm and have a good run at slalom."
Holdener was in 11th after the downhill, 0.43 seconds behind Shiffrin. Gisin was 12th, another hundredth back.
Shiffrin said she used a pair of downhill skis lent to her by Sofia Goggia, the Italian who won a gold in that event four years ago and a silver on Tuesday.
“My strategy was really the same as it’s been the last days," said Shiffrin, who posted the best time in Wednesday's downhill training run. “Yesterday, I finally felt I could really trust my instincts in the track and, it’s silly, but: Just try to ski fast, basically. In downhill, it takes a little bit of practice and a little bit of understanding (of) how the hill is dragging you around and I finally started to feel that the right way yesterday.”
The slalom leg was scheduled to begin about 2 1/2 hours later, and a half-mile away, on a different slope at the National Alpine Skiing Center in Yanqing zone.
The slalom course was being set by Mike Day, Shiffrin’s main coach with the U.S. ski team — the result of a random draw.
Shiffrin’s best event for years has been the slalom.
She won a gold medal in that discipline at age 18 at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and her 47 career World Cup slalom victories are more than any other racer has won in any discipline.
Scheyer, meanwhile, acknowledged being “kind of nervous” about the slalom, because she so rarely races or practices it.
___ AP Sports Writers Andrew Dampf and Daniella Matar contributed to this report.
