Mikaela Shiffrin is having a rough Olympics. “Just two days after crashing 11 seconds into the opening run of the giant slalom race — in which she was the defending gold medalist — the 26-year-old American recorded another ‘Did Not Finish,’ having skidded out of control and missed a gate after about 5 seconds on the course in Beijing.” In short, she slipped. But slipping is a tough way to go when you’ve spent you’re life working towards a moment. “It makes me second-guess the last 15 years, everything I thought I knew about my own skiing and slalom and racing mentality.”

+ Sixteen years ago Lindsey Jacobellis lost a sure gold medal with a little too much flair near the finish line. She fell. She’s been climbing back for 16 years. She just got her gold (and America’s first).

+ Alex Kirshner in Slate: The rationalizing and compartmentalizing that sports tend to require isn’t working this time. I’ve been watching the events every night, but it is harder to get into than other Olympics. Some of it is political. Some of it is the U.S. medal count. But after watching for a few nights, I’m convinced a lot of it is the coverage. We used to get backgrounders and bios on competitors from around the world. Our interest was built up. Now we get commercial after commercial after commercial in an era when we’re used to getting none of them.