Mikaela Shiffrin acknowledges slalom performance was ‘big disappointment’

In what was supposed to be her best event, U.S. skiier Mikaela Shiffrin finished fourth in the women’s slalom event — a finish that she openly admitted was a huge disappointment.

Shiffrin was regarded as a heavy favorite to win gold, but finished four-tenths of a second off the pace, and her time wasn’t even good enough for the podium.

The 22-year-old admitted that her own expectations weighed heavily on her.

“I think it’s more my own expectations, knowing the magnitude of what I’m trying to do,” Shiffrin said, via Jay Busbee of Yahoo Sports. “It’s less about what everyone wants to see. When I get into the start gate, it’s about what I want to accomplish. Today, I didn’t feel I was up to the challenge when I was skiing. It was a big disappointment.

“I don’t have an explanation. I’m going to be going back and evaluating the whole day … we’ll all figure out what happened today to try to avoid it in the future.”

Shiffin showed major signs of nerves before her first run. Ultimately, it sounds like she got too inside her own head and it cost her.