Beijing Winter Olympics: Shiffrin for gold combined, with Goggia skis

“Fly, Mika. You can!”. With this sentence written on a ski Sofia Goggia gave Mikaela Shiffrin her tools for the combined descent. The American champion responded crying with emotion. And then … Last call for Mikaela. So far, the Shiffrin Olympics has been a torture: 4 trials and zero medals, with two races not even finished, an 18th and only one race within the top 10. Incredible for the American who already has two medals on the board. gold (one in Sochi 8 years ago and 1 in South Korea, first in slalom and then in giant). But in Beijing the 6-time world champion, 73 World Cup victories, one of the greatest female skiers in history, is betting everything on this combination to not leave China empty-handed, even if she has already announced that she will participate in the team event which will close the Olympic program.

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Shiffrin, after the fifth place in the 56/100 descent test from the Austrian Christine Scheyer who commands the ranking, will focus everything on the slalom (which runs from the 7 Italians), which among other things was traced by his coach and this too it could be a small advantage to reach the third Olympic gold of his career. All the more reason that here there is no longer Vlhova (gold in combined 4 years ago) who, after winning the slalom here in China, returned home afflicted by a tendon problem in her ankle, thus giving up all the other races of this one. Olympiad. “After the descent (closed more than two seconds behind the winner Suter, ed) I realized that I had to improve a lot. I have tried to do an accelerated course these days to improve and to be ready for the last test “. This combined closes the individual program in Beijing. “I’m just trying to stay calm because I think I did pretty well this morning,” the 26-year-old told American. Keep calm and have a good slalom run, I told myself. I’ll try to go to the gate and give everything I have ”. Mikaela, now or never.