So no one saw it coming. The smoke from Mikaela Shiffrin's latest sensational moment hangs in the air at the National Alpine Skiing Center, along with a collective state of utter disbelief.

The American ski star, who declared she hoped to shine in all five individual events at the Beijing Winter Olympics, shockingly fell at the first hurdle on Monday morning as she was disqualified from the women's giant slalom after slipping wide and missing a gate only seconds into the first run.

As one of the most dominant alpine skiers in history, Shiffrin is the reigning Olympic champion in the discipline, but the 26-year-old struggled to regain her composure in the course after she lost control around a left-turn gate and fell on her side.

It is a devastating blow for the two-time Olympic gold medalist, who also boasts 11 world championship trophies, 73 World Cup victories and three overall World Cup titles. Her 47th career slalom win last month has made her the first skier in history to record that many wins in a single discipline.

Despite spending time sidelined with a back injury and coronavirus, Shiffrin arrived in China as the skier to beat, but her first run at the Beijing Winter Games ended in disaster.

"I'm sorry that that was the performance I did today but like you can see, anything can happen and it happens really, really quickly," she said. "It's a huge disappointment. It's hard to know how it would have gone the rest of the run. The day was finished basically before it even started."

"The surface is incredible, but it's not forgiving. It is different from what we normally ski, but it is kind of a beautiful surface to ski," she added. "I rarely go out in giant slalom. The easiest thing to say is that I skied a couple of good turns and one turn wrong and I paid the consequences."

Shiffrin said she will not wallow in self-pity and has set her sights on her remaining four races in the Olympics, including the slalom on Wednesday.

"I'm not going to cry about this because that's just wasting energy. My best chance for the next races is to move forward, to refocus and I feel like I'm in a good place to do that," she observed.

"I'm going to do my very best to keep the right mentality and keep pushing and that's it."

(Reporting from Yanqing competition zone)