Five years after being dropped from Team USA, Prior Lake's Paula Moltzan earns two minutes in the spotlight

BEIJING - Paula Moltzan earned her two minutes on Monday.

Not many skiers get booted from a national team program only to press reset on a career and ski their way back on. But roughly five years after the U.S. Ski team sacked her, she was in the giant slalom Monday at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Centre northwest of Beijing, racing well.

"I definitely put some of my better skiing out there second run and I'm happy that I was able to find the finish line, twice in a row, in an Olympic event," Moltzan said. "That's really important. And, yeah, it's been a long journey to get here and I'm just happy to be a part of this adventure."

Moltzan, who was born in Prior Lake and attended Lakeville South for two years before moving to Vail, Colo., to chase her dream, was in post-race hubris as a wide grin broke out during her moments of reflection. She was 17th after the first run with a time of 59.57 seconds. She improved to 58.50 during her second run. The combined time of 1 minute, 58.07 seconds lifted her into a tie for 12th.

She could have been faster and looked close to spilling on her second run but kept it together to cross the finish line.

As happy as she is — she planned on having a celebratory dinner with her coach and fiancé Ryan Mooney on Monday night — her Olympic debut will be just as sorrowful as it was savory.

Notice her comment about finding the finish line twice in a row? Notice that she was the highest U.S. finisher on Monday? The course is called the "Ice River." It was fast but not very forgiving. And many competitors took the plunge. A total of 22 of the 82 skiers entered either failed to finish or disqualified during the first run. That included U.S. star Mikaela Shiffrin, a medal hopeful who missed a gate and then fell five turns into her run.

"It's five turns into the Olympics GS," Shiffrin said. "So there's disappointment for sure."

Another 11 failed to finish the second run. Moltzan was in the grandstand area after her outing when teammate Nina O'Brien was in the final seconds of her run and got tripped up on the final gate, crashed across the finish line and suffered a leg injury. The race was stopped for about 15 minutes while O'Brien was attended to and stretchered off, having suffered a compound fracture of her left tibia and fibula.

"My best friend and teammate," Moltzan said, "taking a little digger here at the bottom. That's the bad part."

O'Brien, who was sixth following the first run, screamed and waved for assistance when she came to a stop. The scream sounded familiar. On Thursday, Team USA women's forward Brianna Decker was on the wrong end of a questionable action by a Finnish player that injured her left lower leg and knocked her out of the Olympics.

No one wants to see that happen to athletes who have pushed themselves for nearly four years and longer to reach these Games.

Moltzan declined to further discuss O'Brien's injury, saying it's a story for her friend and teammate to tell. Decker is going to remain in Beijing for the remainder of the Games, apparently making herself an unofficial assistant coach. Big blows for both teams, but their teammates will improvise while supporting them. Moltzan will plow forward with a busy week with the slalom Wednesday, followed by the team event later in the week.

The opening days of these Games have proved again that being able to compete matters. It got to a point Monday where just crossing the finish line during the women's giant slalom seemed to be a victory.

Moltzan's run was years in the making — and she deserved to savor every second after taking her circuitous route to the Olympics.

"I was really happy," Moltzan said. "Whenever you come down in the green, it's a good day, right?"