In an emotional race on Tuesday, Feb. 8, Ryan Cochran-Siegle became the fourth U.S. man to win an Olympic medal in super G in Team USA's history, taking home the silver.

Cochran-Siegle finished just four-hundredths behind gold medalist Mattias Mayer in a nail-biting run that looked nearly flawless to the naked eye. Wearing bib 14, Cochran-Siegle just hoped the time would hold. He sat 0.38 seconds before third-place finisher, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who would go on to be the day's bronze medalist.

It wasn't until the 30th racer headed down the course that the moment really began to sink in. Just 364 days before, Cochran-Siegle walked out of his hospital bed for the first time after neck surgery, an injury sustained in a crash during the Kitzbuehel downhill. Forty-nine years and 354 days earlier, his mother, Barbara Ann Cochran, won slalom gold in the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. Now here he was in Beijing, on the brink of holding a medal of his own.

"It's surreal; it'd be hard to write a better story," chuckled Cochran-Siegle in a post-race interview. "It's full circle."

Happy, relieved, and a little bit proud, Cochran-Siegle said that he was just trying to appreciate the moment, a childhood dream come to fruition on a beautiful bluebird day at the Yanqing Alpine National Ski Center. After an emotional interview with NBC, where Cochran-Siegle fought back tears as he attempted to wrap his head around the possibility of his first Olympic medal, he hopped on the phone to FaceTime with his mom and his older sister Cate. They stayed up to watch the race back at home in Vermont. 

"I knew that he was capable of doing it," Barbara Ann shared through tears. "...You just never know on a particular day whether or not that’s going to happen, so I’m so so proud."

"Part of me recognized I was skiing well, and I had to trust that and fight all the way for the finish," said Cochran-Siegle. "You dream of these moments, you see it in your mind and at times you have to put it away and just focus on the skiing which is what I was doing today. But to come down and see that I was in second, and that we were a ways ahead...I mean it was wild."

Cochran-Siegle's medal is the first alpine medal of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing 2022. 

His teammates, Travis Ganong, River Radamus, and Bryce Bennett, finished 12th, 15th, and 17th, rounding out the day with four Americans in the super G top 20, matching Team Germany for the most men from any one nation to break into the top 20. Radamus, who skied in his Olympic debut on Tuesday, fought hard for a top 15 slot from the back fo the pack wearing bib 33.

Up next on the men's alpine docket is the men's giant slalom on Saturday, Feb. 12. The women take on the slalom on Wednesday, Feb. 9, airing on Tuesday evening Eastern time.

Check out NBC Olympic's exclusive interview with Cochran-Siegle, and a replay of his silver medal run on YouTube.

RESULTS 
Men's super G 

Nina O’Brien was on track to capture one of the best finishes of her career in the Winter Olympic Games giant slalom on Monday, Feb. 7. She came into the second run wearing bib 21, sitting in sixth behind Norway's Ragnhild Mowinckel. On the hunt for a medal in her Olympic debut, O’Brien pushed throughout the entirety of the course.

A fast run took an unfortunate turn of events at the final gate when O’Brien caught an edge and spiraled into an aggressive crash best described as a chaotic jumble of limbs and skis. She was immediately attended to by on-course medical staff. After further evaluation, it was announced O'Brien sustained a compound fracture of her left tibia and fibula just short of the finish. She was transported to the hospital in Yanqing where an initial stabilization procedure was successfully performed by local doctors, and she received excellent care. She will return to the US for further evaluation and care.

O'Brien would like to express her gratitude to all of the people who assisted her so quickly in the finish area at the race, and especially to the doctors and nurses at the hospital who have taken such great care of her. 

In her Olympic debut, Paula Moltzan posted the top finish for the U.S. women in Monday's giant slalom, tying with Norway's Maria Therese Tviberg in 12th. Moltzan, known for her prowess in the slalom, had minimal expectations for herself coming into Sunday's giant slalom. She just hoped to ski well. A quick bauble and an acrobatic save kept her in the fold and earned her the top finish for Team USA.

"I'm happy to be a little bit flexible," she laughed. 

Mikaela Shiffrin, who walked into the day's race carrying the weight of gold-medal expectations on her shoulders, did not finish her first run, skiing out around the fifth gate. 

The mistake was uncharacteristic of Shiffrin. When asked if she ever skis out in giant slalom, her response was "rarely." She knows questions will be asked, questions like "what went wrong." The meticulous skier spends so much time in training learning how to limit her risk of crashing that doing so in the Olympics is a shock to many. But Shiffrin knows she was pushing the first four turns. She knows where her mentality was at. Despite what she called a 'huge disappointment,' Shiffrin is already on to the next one. 

"We point blame at a lot of places in the season, but I think the easiest thing to say is that I skied a couple good turns and I skied one turn a bit wrong, and I paid the hardest consequence for that. Now we have to move forward because there’s a lot still to come the next week."

The defending giant slalom Olympic gold medalist was not the only top skier who struggled right out of the gate. Italy's Marta Bassino of Italy made a similar mistake on the same gate and skied out of the course. New Zealand's Alice Robinson also lost her cool on the top section of the first run. 

In the finish tent, Shiffrin stepped aside to take a moment to herself before facing the questions she knew were coming. In the same moment, Robinson sat crying and was being consoled by her physio. Shiffrin took notice and shared some words of wisdom. 

"Stop crying," she said. "You can’t afford to lose that emotional energy right now. You got more shots. Figure out what you can figure out, and then you just have to let the rest go."

"It's just hard," responded Alice.

"Oh yeah, I know - that fourth and a half gate is a real b*tch."

Nina O'Brien made it through that fourth gate in both runs. Coming into her second, O'Brien was sitting sixth overall, on the edge of what could be a career-best result for her in the giant slalom. She pushed the limits and hauled through each turn, bobbling, then recovering, and continuing to carry speed despite her mistakes. Then, at the last gate, O'Brien caught an edge and crashed unexpectedly in a chaotic tangle of limbs and skis. She remained alert and responsive as medical staff rushed into the finish to tend to her, only concerned about holding up the race and how fast she was skiing. O'Brien has been transported with Team USA's medical staff for further evaluation. At the moment, there are no updates as to the extent of her injuries. 

"I mean, we're at the Olympics," Moltzan commented when asked why she thinks so many athletes struggled on Sunday. "I think everyone is just trying to get their best skiing out there, and people are pushing to the limit, and when that happens, there's a breaking point."

The race went on to see Sweden's Sara Hector at the top of the podium, winning her first-ever Olympic gold. Italy's Federica Brignone took silver and Switzerland's Lara Gut-Behrami bronze. Fellow American AJ Hurt did not finish her first run.

RESULTS
Women's giant slalom

HOW TO WATCH
*All times EST

Please note: Streaming services and apps are third-party services and subject to such parties’ terms of use and data privacy. U.S. Ski & Snowboard disclaims any and all liability for use of third-party services and apps.

Monday, Feb. 7, 2022
8:00 p.m. Primetime Freestyle Skiing Women's Big Air, Alpine Skiing Men's Super G, NBC Broadcast
10:00 p.m. Alpine Skiing – Men's Super G, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022
2:00 a.m. West Coast Encore – Women’s Big Air Final, Men’s super G & more, NBC Broadcast
8:00 p.m. Primetime Broadcast – Snowboarding Women’s Halfpipe, Alpine Women’s Slalom, Freestyle Mewn’s Big Air, NBC Broadcast
9:15 p.m. Alpine Skiing – Women’s Slalom Run 1, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022
12:45 a.m. Alpine – Alpine Skiing – Women’s Slalom Run 2, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock
2:00 a.m. Primetime – Snowboarding Women’s Halfpipe Qualifying, Alpine Skiing Women’s Slalom, Freestyle Men’s Big Air (re-air), NBC Broadcast
5:00 a.m. Primetime – Snowboarding Women’s Halfpipe Qualifying, Alpine Skiing Women’s Slalom, Freestyle Men’s Big Air (re-air), NBC Broadcast
2:00 p.m. Daytime – Alpine Skiing Women’s Slalom, Nordic Combined Men’s Normal Hill & 10km, Snowboarding Women’s Snowboardcross Final, NBC Broadcast
9:30 p.m. Alpine Skiing – Men’s Combined Downhill, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022
1:05 a.m. Primetime Plus – Alpine Skiing – Men’s Alpine Combined Slalom, NBC Broadcast
1:15 a.m. Alpine Skiing, Men’s Combined Slalom, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock
8:00 p.m. Primetime – Alpine Skiing Women’s Super G (Live), Snowboarding Men’s Halfpipe Final (Live), Freestyle Mixed Team Aerials Final, NBC Broadcast
10:00 p.m. Alpine Skiing – Women’s Super G, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, Streaming Peacock, NBCOlympics.com

After experiencing race delays due to wind on Sunday, the U.S. men walked away from Monday’s downhill at the Yanginq National Alpine Ski Center with three top 20 finishes. Ryan Cochran-Siegle led the way in 14th, followed by Bryce Bennett in 19th and Travis Ganong in 20th.

The course, known as “The Rock,” is one of the shorter downhills in Olympic history, with a highly reactive and aggressive surface that skied fast, loading skiers up and providing for some thrilling turns, near-miss crashes, and big saves from the men’s downhill field.

A brief course hold provided some intel from the first man down (Austria’s Vincent Kriechmayr), and Bryce Bennett, who was third out of the gate, saw an opportunity to push the limit of his line and took it. Since winning his first World Cup in Val Gardena, Italy, this season, Bennett has often said he is no longer interested in top 10 finishes. It’s a podium or nothing, and at the Olympics, Bennett was going for gold.

Bennett hit top speeds at 85.1 mph but took an overly aggressive on his line, causing the ski to “load up weird” on a crucial turn and for Bennett to be thrown off his line. Any heat Bennett was packing on track for a top spot was lost. Despite the mistake, he said he wouldn’t change a thing.

“It was on the limit the entire time,” Bennett reported to NBC, semi-speechless after an exhilarating run. “In this sport… it’s difficult for all the pieces to align, especially on an Olympic day. And to be honest, I think I had most of them in line, but... I don’t have words for what happened; it just happened.” 

Top U.S. finisher Cochran-Siegle took a slightly different approach to the course, skiing down in bib 16. A bit more conservative on his line, Cochran-Siegle finished strong but did not see the results he wanted.

“You know, I was trying to be relaxed and just go with the flow, and I think maybe it was a touch too passive up top,” reflected Cochran-Siegle. “It was definitely a little bumpier than the training run and I think I just needed to adapt better than I did, I didn’t really carry momentum through that section. You gotta be dialed every single turn here and really carry your speed through. I’d call it okay skiing, nothing special.”

Ganong shared similar sentiments. 

"I'm pretty conservative with the way I ski. Sometimes it works out and I'm really really fastest. Today, it was the Olympic downhill, I knew that I had to take some risks. And it's an easy track, so if you ski conservative and try and ski perfect it's not going to be a medal-worthy run. With that in mind, I pushed harder than I normally pushed, and I tried, and that's all you can do. The first two splits were really really competitive and then I had a couple of mistakes which took me out of it."

Switzerland's Beat Fuez took the gold, beating out silver medalist, Johan Clarey by one-tenth of a second. Clarey's medalist made him the oldest man to medal at a Winter Olympic Games, at the age of 41. Two-time Olympic downhill gold medalist, Mattias Mayer, took bronze.

On Tuesday, the men's focus shifts to the super-G, their next opportunity to medal at the Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022.

RESULTS
Men's downhill

HOW TO WATCH
*All times EST

Please note: Streaming services and apps are third-party services and subject to such parties’ terms of use and data privacy. U.S. Ski & Snowboard disclaims any and all liability for use of third-party services and apps.

Monday, Feb. 7, 2022
8:00 p.m. Primetime Freestyle Skiing Women's Big Air, Alpine Skiing Men's Super G, NBC Broadcast
10:00 p.m. Alpine Skiing – Men's Super G, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022
2:00 a.m. West Coast Encore – Women’s Big Air Final, Men’s super G & more, NBC Broadcast
8:00 p.m. Primetime Broadcast – Snowboarding Women’s Halfpipe, Alpine Women’s Slalom, Freestyle Mewn’s Big Air, NBC Broadcast
9:15 p.m. Alpine Skiing – Women’s Slalom Run 1, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022
12:45 a.m. Alpine – Alpine Skiing – Women’s Slalom Run 2, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock
2:00 a.m. Primetime – Snowboarding Women’s Halfpipe Qualifying, Alpine Skiing Women’s Slalom, Freestyle Men’s Big Air (re-air), NBC Broadcast
5:00 a.m. Primetime – Snowboarding Women’s Halfpipe Qualifying, Alpine Skiing Women’s Slalom, Freestyle Men’s Big Air (re-air), NBC Broadcast
2:00 p.m. Daytime – Alpine Skiing Women’s Slalom, Nordic Combined Men’s Normal Hill & 10km, Snowboarding Women’s Snowboardcross Final, NBC Broadcast
9:30 p.m. Alpine Skiing – Men’s Combined Downhill, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022
1:05 a.m. Primetime Plus – Alpine Skiing – Men’s Alpine Combined Slalom, NBC Broadcast
1:15 a.m. Alpine Skiing, Men’s Combined Slalom, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, NBCOlympics.com, Streaming Peacock
8:00 p.m. Primetime – Alpine Skiing Women’s Super G (Live), Snowboarding Men’s Halfpipe Final (Live), Freestyle Mixed Team Aerials Final, NBC Broadcast
10:00 p.m. Alpine Skiing – Women’s Super G, National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, CHN, Streaming Peacock, NBCOlympics.com

In February 2020, Mikaela Shiffrin lost her father, Jeff Shiffrin, in an unexpected accident. A fixture in her life and her career as a ski racer, "the Shiffrin family rock," was suddenly gone. Shiffrin was on set shooting the cover of Sports Illustrated in Europe while her father was being rushed to the hospital. A highlight of her career immediately became one of the worst days of her life and rocked her into a funk that almost meant the end of her ski racing career.

Two years after his death, NBC Olympics has released an emotional nine-minute tribute to Jeff's legacy, one which he left behind in photographs that decorate Shiffrin's home in Edwards, Colorado. Shiffrin, her brother Taylor, and her mother Eileen open up about the devastating experience and the moment she chose to continue when all she wanted was to let go.

In the New York Times exclusive multimedia feature, What Scares the World's Most Daring Olympians, published Feb. 1, 2022, journalists explore the five biggest fears of Winter Olympic athletes – getting hurt, new tricks, bad weather, uncertainty, and skiing nearly blind. Five parts, five stories, one for each fear. 

Each piece walks readers through an interactive, visual experience that depicts the thoughts and feelings that race through the minds of the athletes as they push themselves to new speeds and new heights. As a whole, it is a testament to the grit, determination, and focus that every athlete channels when they put their bodies on the line in pursuit of a feeling – a feeling that defies fear and derives exuberance. The Olympic stage is one most athletes spend their entire lives pursuing, an opportunity none of them will take for granted, no matter the stakes.

The article features three dozen active and retired Winter Olympians, including U.S. Ski & Snowboard's very own Jamie Anderson, Erik Arvidsson, Ryan Cochran-Siegle, Billy Demong, Red Gerard, Faye Gulini, Breezy Johnson, Casey Larson, Ben Loomis, Annika Malacinski, Alice Merryweather, Steven Nyman, River Radamus, Logan Sankey, Shaun White, and Jackie Wiles.

"The Winter Olympics are a carnival of danger, a spectacle of speed and slick surfaces, powered mostly by the undefeated force of gravity. Skiers hurtle themselves down mountains faster than cars drive on highways. Sliders ride high-speed sleds down a twisting chute of ice. Ski jumpers soar great distances through the air, and snowboarders and freestyle skiers flip and spin in the sky and hope for a safe landing. The next wipeout always feels moments away. The athletes who perform these daring feats are not crazy. They are not reckless. But they do have one thing in common that might surprise those of us who watch.

They are scared. Every one of them."

Explore the full feature at NYTimes.com >>