French skier Mathieu Faivre, the boyfriend of American skier Mikaela Shiffrin, was sent home from the 2018 Winter Olympics for comments he made after a seventh-place finish in the men’s giant slalom race on Sunday.
Three of Faivre’s countrymen placed ahead of him in the top six; when he was asked about their success, he reportedly snapped at reporters rather than congratulate his teammates.
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“If you only knew what I think about the group collective,” he reportedly said, according to the BBC, adding that he was “disgusted with the result” and “I’m here to race for myself only.”
Faivre was clearly not happy with his performance — he said “when I saw where I’d finished it was like a slap in the face” — but French officials seemingly thought he took his comments one step too far.
David Chastain, the director for the French men’s skiing program, confirmed to multiple media outlets Monday that Faivre had been sent home from Pyeongchang for “disciplinary reasons” and will not compete in the Alpine skiing team event Saturday.
The 26-year-old Faivre, who is from southern France, later apologized on social media for his comments, saying in part that he is “hot-blooded.”
“Skiing is an individual sport that is practiced as a team. However, when we are in the starting gate, only our individual race and our own performance are important,” Faivre wrote on Facebook. “So yes, when it came time to give my feelings on my race, 10 minutes after crossing the finish line, only my performance and failure were present.”
Meanwhile, Shiffrin is still in Pyeongchang with one more event left to compete in, the Alpine combined race, after making the decision to skip Wednesday’s downhill event. The combined event was originally scheduled to be run Friday; however, expected strong winds forced the event to be moved to Thursday, which affected Shiffrin’s decision to skip Wednesday’s downhill.
“As much as I wanted to compete in the Olympic downhill, with the schedule change it’s important for me to focus my energy on preparing for the combined,” Shiffrin said in a statement released by the U.S. Olympic Committee.
“I’m looking forward to cheering on our girls racing in the downhill and to compete myself in Thursday’s combined,” she added.
Shiffrin, who won a gold medal in the women’s giant slalom competition last week, told Us Weekly that her relationship with Faivre is “a very new fresh thing” due to the long distance making it difficult to go on dates.
The two started dating last summer, despite Shiffrin living in Colorado and Faivre living in Paris.
“I mean, honestly, we haven’t had that many dates, this is a very new, fresh thing,” she said. “So a typical date is, like, him flying to the U.S. or me flying to France and finding something to do for a few days, for like four days, and then it’s, like, ‘OK, bye. See you next time!’”
The 2018 Winter Olympics could have been one of their longest dates yet, although it came to an abrupt halt Sunday after Faivre’s comments.
