By ANDREW DAMPF, Associated Press Sports Writer
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber of Austria won gold in the new team combined event at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Tuesday when Mikaela Shiffrin surprisingly crossed fourth after wasting a first-run lead by teammate Breezy Johnson.
Shiffrin, the most successful World Cup racer of all time with a record 108 victories — 71 of them in slalom, also a record — has now gone seven straight Olympic races without a medal.
After taking two golds and silver from her first two Olympics, Shiffrin also didn’t win a medal in any of her six races at the Beijing Games four years ago.
Kira Weidle-Winkelmann and Emma Aicher of Germany earned silver and Paula Moltzan and Jacqueline Wiles of the U.S. took bronze.
Shiffrin lost time to the leaders at every checkpoint and crossed 0.31 seconds behind — missing a medal by finishing 0.06 behind the other American team. In the finish area, Johnson — who was coming off a gold in the individual downhill — embraced Shiffrin, while the Austrians and other podium finishers began celebrating.
The team combined consists of one racer competing in a downhill run and another in a slalom run, with the times from the two added together to determine the results.
Shiffrin still has her individual events of giant slalom and slalom to come.
