Prior Lake's Paula Moltzan just misses bronze medal in Alpine mixed team event

BEIJING – Paula Moltzan was close to putting a cherry on top of successful Olympics.

She helped the United States reach the semifinals of the mixed parallel slalom at the Yanqing National Skiing Center on Sunday. But that's when Moltzan, from Prior Lake, fell near the final gates while racing against Germany.

Moltzan bounced back to win her bronze medal match against Norway, but the Norwegians won on a tiebreaker by .42 seconds, leaving the Americans in fourth. Top-ranked Austria beat Germany for gold.

Team USA — featuring Moltzan, Mikaela Shiffrin, River Radamus and Tommy Ford — entered the event as the sixth seed, so the finish was a little better than expected in the unique event, which was postponed a day because of strong wind Saturday. The Americans defeated Slovakia in the first round and Italy in the quarterfinals.

This is just the second time the mixed team parallel slalom has been held at an Olympics. Teams of four — two men and two women — race each other, side by side, down the course. The winner earns a point for their team. If there is a 2-2 tie, the tiebreaker is the combined times of the fastest man and woman.

Despite missing out on a medal on the final day of the Beijing Games, Moltzan's Olympics was still a success. The 27-year-old finished 14th in the giant slalom and eighth in the slalom, the top U.S. finisher in both races. Shiffrin failed to finish either of those races, and the two-time Olympic gold medalist failed to medal in any of her six events in China.