YANQING, China. – Asa Miller just couldn’t solve The Ice River and, for the second straight time in his second consecutive Winter Olympics, crashed out in the first run of the men’s slalom of Alpine skiing on Wednesday.
Teary-eyed, Miller, 21, walked on the side of the track, his head bowed, as he contemplated what went wrong, just like when he crashed out in the giant slalom three days ago.
The track also proved cruel to 33 other skiers who failed to complete the race out of the 89 starters, like Miller registering DNF (Did Not Finish).
“I have a fault also,” said Miller, who was accompanied by American coach Will Gregorak at the Athletes’ Area before going by his lonesome to the wax cabin below the finish area.
Austrian Johannes Strolz topped the first run by a slim margin over Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen and Sebastian Foss-Solevaag.
Strolz, 29, already a winner of the Alpine combined last week in his first Olympics, clocked 53.92 seconds. Kristoffersen was .02 seconds behind and Foss-Solevaag .06 behind.
The Austrian described the snow as “a little uneven between being aggressive and icy in some spots,” but it was different for Miller, who skied for 36 seconds before crashing out–more than twice the time he spent on the ice in the giant slalom at 15.90 seconds.
“With this type of snow, the skis were not responding very well for him so it’s very difficult to get his feeling on the skis and that’s how it goes sometimes,” Gregorak said. “You hoped that it wouldn’t happen in the Olympics, but that’s ski racing and that’s the nature of the sport, and that’s slalom racing.”