YANQING, China — Aleksander Aamodt Kilde leaned against a barrier some 100 feet beyond an Olympic finish line and pondered a “bad feeling” — just as his girlfriend had four hours earlier.
It was almost 2 p.m. here in suburban Beijing on Monday, a day headlined by a bona fide Winter Games power couple. Mikaela Shiffrin would slalom down a mountain in the morning. Kilde would speed down that same mountain in the afternoon. A few hours later, many believed, they’d star in back-to-back medal ceremonies, and celebrate their first day of Olympic competition as an item.
But instead, Shiffrin crashed out, and Kilde made tiny mistakes, and here he was, speaking for both of them, Alpine skiing favorites who’d come up empty.