US skiing sensation Mikaela Shiffrin says she feels 'like a joke' after crashing out of the Winter Olympics without an individual medal following her third Did Not Finish of the Games.
The star, who has won more World Cup slalom races than any other skier in history, has now competed in all five women's events, only finishing two of them in ninth and 18th place.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist's torrid time in Beijing was completed after she failed to make it to the bottom of the slalom leg of the women's combined event this morning.
It comes after falls in two other events on February 7 and February 9, confirming her miserable Games with her only chance of a medal now coming in a team event.
Shiffrin, 26, arrived in China as one of the biggest stars of winter sport, with three Olympic medals, six world championship golds and three overall World Cup titles.
US skiing sensation Mikaela Shiffrin says she feels 'like a joke' after crashing out of the Winter Olympics without an individual medal, pictured tumbling today
She had looked finally set for a medal today after finishing fifth in the morning's downhill portion of the event, only 0.56 seconds off the lead.
But her fall in the slalom allowed Switzerland's Michelle Gisin in to retain her Olympic combined title. Shiffrin claimed a silver in the event four years ago.
She said after the disappointment: 'Right now, I just feel like a joke.
'Sixty per cent of my DNF rate for my entire career has happened at this Olympic Games,' said Shiffrin, whose only chance of redemption in Beijing now lies in the forthcoming team event.
'I should probably just quit, But I'm going to go out and practise the team event.
Her Games got off to a bad start when she fell during the Women's Giant Slalom on February 7 (pictured)
Shiffrin suffered a similar fate on February 9 when she crashed out of the two-leg slalom (pictured)
'People want to say it's a pressure thing. There are certainly points during the Games where I felt the weight of pressure and expectations. But in general, when I was racing, it wasn't the case that that was something outrageous.
'Today I felt like I had a pretty calm, solid mentality, nothing too crazy. Of course I wanted to win a medal, but before that I just wanted to take the opportunity to ski another run of slalom on this hill.
'The most disappointing thing, beyond walking away from the Games with no individual medals, is that I had multiple opportunities to ski slalom on this track, and I failed in all of them.'
Trouble came after about 10 gates and 10 seconds into today's race when she lost her balance, could not regain it, and ended up landing on her hip.
Shiffrin sat for a few moments in the snow. When she rose, she shook her head, then looked up at the hill, as though trying to figure out exactly where things went wrong.
Trouble came after about 10 gates and 10 seconds into today's race when she lost her balance, could not regain it, and ended up landing on her hip
Shiffrin sat for a few moments in the snow. When she rose, she shook her head, then looked up at the hill, as though trying to figure out exactly where things went wrong
Later, course reports - sent to Americans who raced after Shiffrin - warned of a rut on the slope that might have been what caused Thursday's issue.
It was a similar result to the first run in each of her first two races: the two-leg giant slalom on February 7, and the two-leg slalom on February 9, which she did not finish.
As for Shiffrin's other races, she was ninth in the super-G and 18th in the downhill, making her Olympic debuts in both.
Shiffrin, the biggest hope for the U.S. Alpine team, and one of the finest slalom skiers the sport has seen, said she would line up for the mixed team event on Saturday, her last chance to win a gold medal.
'The whole shebang in sport is that you can have preparation, you can have confidence... You can have all these pieces and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
'I have literally no idea why we keep coming back and doing it, especially after today. But I'm going to come back out tomorrow and ski some parallel GS (giant slalom) because I'm that much of an idiot.'
Later, course reports - sent to Americans who raced after Shiffrin - warned of a rut on the slope that might have been what caused Thursday's issue
A six-times world champion, Shiffrin won gold in giant slalom in Pyeongchang after winning in slalom at Sochi in 2014. She also claimed a silver medal in the combined four years ago in South Korea.
She spoke of her disappointment but said she would be ignoring the naysayers over her Beijing performances.
'There's going to be a whole chaotic mess of c**p that people are saying about how I just fantastically failed these last couple of weeks in the moments that actually counted,' she added.
'It's really strange, but I'm not even afraid of that right now. Maybe that's because I literally have zero emotional energy to give anymore.'
After finishing the downhill section of the combined 0.56 off the lead, a distance she could easily make up, Shiffrin said she changed tactics for the slalom, trying to learn from previous mistakes on the Ice River course.
Olympic skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (left), Shiffrin's boyfriend, said earlier in the Games she was 'in a good state'
'If you compare it with the slalom race, I was calmer, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because after the slalom, in a lot of ways, I maybe should have been more nervous,' she said.
'I wasn't hesitating or something... I didn't even take the same mentality. Like the slalom race maybe I was pushing too hard. It's hard to say.
'So today I took a different tactic. And it was literally fine and then I was off the course again.'
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.
'This is incredibly difficult for her as a person,' U.S. head women's Alpine coach Paul Kristofic said. 'We had big expectations coming here, and it hasn't gone the way we hoped, of course.'
Earlier during the Games, Shiffrin's boyfriend, Norwegian skier Aleskander Aamodt Kilde, described her as being 'in a good state; she's all right.'
'She's a hero and she can handle this. She handles pressure like no one else, and this is something she will come out of,' said Kilde, who won a silver Thursday in Alpine combined. 'But it's been a couple of tough days.'
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