BEIJING (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin’s Olympic schedule is off to a disappointing start.
The defending Olympic champion missed a gate early in the first run of the giant slalom at the Beijing Games and was disqualified from the event. Coming around a left-turn gate, she lost control, slid and fell on her side.
The 26-year-old Shiffrin was trying to become the first Alpine ski racer from the United States to win three Olympic golds across a career.
Her next race is the slalom on Wednesday.
Also in Beijing:
— Beat Feuz finally has the one major victory that had been missing from his overflowing collection of downhill achievements: Olympic gold. The diminutive Swiss skier mastered a tricky course that had never been raced before by the world’s best and finished a slim 0.10 seconds ahead of 41-year-old Johan Clarey of France.
— Canadian snowboarder Max Parrot took home the Olympic gold medal in men’s slopestyle just over three years removed from being diagnosed with cancer. Parrot scored a 90.96 to hold off Su Yiming of China and Mark McMorris of Canada. American Red Gerard was fourth.
— Kamila Valieva became the first woman to land a quad in the Olympics — two of them, in fact — and her historic free skate put a stamp on Russia’s dominant run to the gold medal in the team figure skating event. The U.S. took the silver medal after back-to-back bronze, while Japan won its first team medal with bronze. The American ice dance team of Madison Chock and Evan Bates delivered the best free skate of their career.
— American figure skater Vincent Zhou has tested positive as part of regular COVID-19 screening at the Beijing Olympics, one day after struggling through a poor free skate for the eventual team silver medalists. Zhou is undergoing additional testing Monday to confirm his status. If the results are negative, he will be allowed to compete in the individual competition, which begins with the men’s short program on Tuesday.
— Players for Canada and the Russian team are being required to wear masks for their women’s hockey preliminary-round game because of what the International Olympic Committee calls “safety and security reasons.” The IOC relayed that decision to the International Ice Hockey Federation after the start of the Group A game was delayed by an hour.
— Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai has told a French newspaper in an interview published Monday that international concern over her well-being is based on “an enormous misunderstanding.” She denied having accused the Chinese official of sexual assault. The newspaper said it had to submit questions in advance and that a Chinese Olympic committee official sat in on the discussion and translated her comments from Chinese. Peng briefly disappeared from public view in November after she accused a Chinese official of sexual assault on her verified Weibo social media.
