Media needs to let up on Michaela Shiffrin

The sports media is often guilty of framing narratives in a damaging win-or-else mentality but the media appears to have an incredible blind side in the way they frame alpine skiing. Most sports media are framing Michaela Shiffrin as someone seeking to make history by winning Gold medals and will likely frame her as a disappointment which is an odd treatment of someone who has already made history as the most decorated American female skier regardless of what happens here.

Alpine skiing is an extremely random sport with results being separated by hundredths of a second and you can’t see your competition. The best get separated from the worst over the law of averages.

To judge these skiers on this one performance every four years is as cruel as judging MLB players by three random innings every four years.

Unless all the stars line perfectly, it’s very rare for any skier to get more than a couple medals.

The media says Michaela Shiffrin failed last Olympics when she got a Gold and a Silver. Read the stories more carefully and Michaela herself didn’t feel like she failed, but she did get assailed with lots of articles and messages saying she was a failure.

Bode Miller is the most decorated North American skier of all time and he medaled 6 times out of 19 Olympic runs. Only one of them was a Gold. He also won countless world championships and world cups in between.