CORTINA d’AMPEZZIO, Italy – The real big shocker of these Winter Games is how skier Mikaela Shiffrin and skater Ilia Malinin have become accidental American heroes.

Through the pain of their very public Olympic suffering, they’ve taught mere mortals like you and me a valuable lesson:

Choke happens.

If the pressure can get to Shiffrin and Malinin, considered the best at what they do on the planet, there’s no shame when muggles like us fail epically.

Eight long years since the exact date when Shiffrin won her last Olympic gold medal, she stood alone at the start gate on Sunday, looked down at the length of the giant slalom run beneath her skis and saw what a slippery slope world dominance can be.

After crossing the finish line with the 11th fastest time on the Olympia delle Tofane course, Shiffrin said it was a “better” result than she was counting on, “if I had any expectations.”

Watching Shiffrin try to draw a smiley face on yet another Olympic race that was significantly below her GOAT standards was another difficult, yet useful, reminder.

In an imperfect world, the pursuit of perfection is a fool’s errand.

Sports, like life, can get really messy when you, me, or anyone who feeds the great American hype machine anoints an Olympic champion before the Games begin.

Maybe we should heed the advice of Italian skier Federica Brignone, who won her second gold of these Games in the giant slalom to complete an inspiring comeback from a serious injury last spring that kept her off the snow for 300 days.

“I think if I came here to win a gold medal,” Brignone said. “I would go home with no medal.”

Dare to be great.

But assume nothing, because reaching for the stars is a good way to fall on your butt.  

Pressure might be a privilege.

But at the Olympics, it’s also an elephant big enough to choke all the oxygen out of the room.

With the world watching on Friday, we saw that elephant sit on the chest of Malinin, transforming a 21-year-old U.S. figure skater from a Quad God into the Rump Chump within four agonizing minutes.

Not 60 seconds into a skating routine that was supposed to launch him into Wheaties box stardom, Malinin wound up for his signature quadruple axel move and … aborted it.

He choked, falling twice on the ice and tumbling all the way to eighth place in the standings.

“Being an Olympic gold medal hopeful is a lot to deal with,” said Malinin, confessing the pressure was so great it totally blew his mind and nearly paralyzed every fiber of athleticism in his body.

I’ve been everywhere in sports, man. From the Masters to the NBA Finals, and the Super Bowl to the Indy 500, I’ve seen it all.

And the pressure of the Olympics is like nothing else.

“It’s different from world championships, World Cups and other world events. Walking in (an Olympic stadium), it can feel like an incredibly lonely place,” Caroline Anderson, a former Olympic athlete turned sports psychologist for the Australian national team, told a TV crew from her home country in 2024.

The same flag-waving, patriotic fervor capable of filling a heart with pride can also feel like a 60-pound stone on an athlete’s back.

An Olympic corporate sponsor, whether it keeps a bobsled running down the track or makes Shiffrin crazy rich, expects its big payoff at the Games.

Unable to mint Olympic medals, Shiffrin has turned into a public relations machine stuck on the spin cycle. If she can’t be the GOAT that dominates races, Mikaela Inc. seems bound and determined to control the narrative.

“The Olympics ask us to take a real risk on the world stage,” Shiffrin said Friday in a carefully crafted Instagram post.

“May we all champion one another, tread lightly on what we don’t fully comprehend and have the fortitude to keep showing up.”

Kudos to Shiffrin for being gracious in defeat.

But she darn well knows it’s not nearly as fun – or profitable – as being humble in victory.

Once every four years, we rip the invisibility cloak from the kings and queens of niche sports that most of us barely notice outside of the Olympics, then act surprised when, on their worst days, these emperors of the skiing or skating world have no clothes.

In a messy world, sooner or later, we all get exposed.

What makes the Olympics so hard is also what makes the Games so special.

For anybody who dares to take any kind of risk in life, sooner or later, choke happens.

And maybe we fall on our rumps with a thump.

Whether you’re a Quad God or a knucklehead like me, that divine comedy is what makes us all so very human.