By Alan Baldwin
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Mikaela Shiffrin is 'just finding her form' and sure to bounce back from the shock of missing out on a medal in her first race of the Milano Cortina Olympics, downhill gold medallist Breezy Johnson said on Wednesday.
The U.S. skiers were paired together in Tuesday's team combined and, despite Johnson going fastest in the downhill, finished fourth after Shiffrin was only 15th in the slalom leg.
The result was the shock of the women's Alpine
programme so far, with Shiffrin the season's dominant slalom skier and most successful of all time in the World Cup with a record 108 wins.
"It was an interesting day, right?," said Johnson with wry understatement in an interview with Reuters Television.
"Conditions were changing all day and obviously the slalom slope wasn't what we've all wanted it to be. And I think Mikaela, from my perspective, is really just finding her form."
Johnson said Shiffrin, winner of seven out of eight slaloms this season, had been 'a little bit rattled' by the outcome and felt bad for letting down her teammate.
"I just talked to her and was, like, 'listen, all that any of us can ask of anybody else is that you go out and you try your best. And you did that. And I know you did that. I know that you didn't sit in that start and go, well, I have this lead and so I'm going to ski safe, hopefully that will be good enough,'," she added.
"Things happen and I know that better than anyone. And I think that she's learning that. I told her 'you trust your process. You do not throw the baby out with the bath water, you keep going and you hold your head high'. I think she's finding the means to do that. And she's going to go over everything that's happened and figure everything out."
Shiffrin, 30, has two more races at the Olympics -- the giant slalom and slalom. She has won golds in both before: the giant in 2018 and slalom in 2014.
At the 2022 Beijing Games, Shiffrin arrived as a big U.S. medal hope but left empty-handed and Tuesday's start revived memories of that surprising blank.
Johnson doubted there would be a repeat.
"She's a great person at dealing with pressure," she said. "I think as she gets older, she gets better at that.
"But I also think the whole world needs to realise that just because you have 107 wins or whatever that she has, it doesn't make it easier to go and win. It's just much more impressive that she has done that."
(Reporting by Alan BaldwinEditing by Christian Radnedge)
