Slalom is a tough sport (but then again every sport is tough at Olympic level) and in both cases small errors turned into significant time losses.  Bit like the illustration of chaos theory - a butterfly flaps its wings and it leads to a storm breaking out on the other side of the world.  A few centimetres off-line on one gate soon compounds into a 5 -6 second time loss; too much to make up in an event last a minute and a half.

It brings up for me the old chestnut of outcome or process focus.  Put simply, is it better to focus on the outcome you want (e.g. win a gold medal) or the things you need to do to get there?   Conventional wisdom says that focusing on the end -result can be counter-productive, as it leads competitors into a future-oriented, high anxiety state that doesn't enable the 'in the moment' awareness necessary for peak performance. However it is motivating to strive for Gold, so its a useful focus to drive a whole campaign and to encourage commitment and hard work in training.  The tricky bit is ensuring that athletes can switch their focus and motivation from one to the other.