After an eventful crash in the slalom event, Nina O’Brien fractured her leg. She returned to the U.S. for treatment after receiving immediate hospital care in China. The tibia was damaged, allowing fractures to occur on her leg. At first, O’Brien observed the hill and thought it was prepared perfectly. As she led near to the end of the race, O’Brien lost her balance and tumbled in the snow. Shocked, multiple skiers came running to O’Brien to get her on the stretcher. She was frozen. The team had to move O’Brien quickly to clear the area for the next set of competitors.
In the past, O’Brien has been involved with the American World Cup alpine ski racing with a focus in slalom. For safety reasons, O’Brien has been disqualified from the slalom competition in this year’s Olympics. This giant slalom race shows zigzag directions that are often marked down by flags and poles. It was heartbreaking for O’Brien to no longer participate in the event, but she still wore a big smile seeing how people are carefully tending to her needs in the incident. Eventually, Sara Hector of Sweden won the gold medal.
O’Brien reviewed the clips where she fell. She was upset that she couldn’t go through the other gates and thought of different ways of how she could better approach it in the future. Mikaela Shriffin, a notable American skier, extended her wishes. She said that skiing can be very tough, but she saw O’Brien as a warrior not only handling the tough conditions of the high slope well, but also powering through the surgery. Although O’Brien’s performance stops at this point, people will be looking forward to Shriffin’s involvement in the Olympics this evening.
