STOCKHOLM, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The United States will skip the World Ski Championships team event at Are, Sweden on Tuesday, confirmed the U.S. Alpine director Jesse Hunt through social media on Monday.
"In a continued effort to focus on development and build towards winning at every level, we at U.S. Ski & Snowboard will not enter a team into tomorrow's team event," Hunt said in the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team tweet.
"We are maximizing our opportunity for success here in @Are2019, and @valdifassa2019 at the World Junior Champs next week. We are committed to developing our athletes in dual format events, so we can be in a position to contend for a medal in Beijing 2022," read the tweet.
Newly-crowned super-G gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin had announced to miss the team event, as well as the Alpine combined and downhill, to rest up for her final races of the giant slalom and slalom, while star skier Lindsey Vonn retired after winning bronze in Sunday's downhill.
The team event involves men and women racing one-on-one in parallel runs, competing in a best-of-four and knockout format.
The U.S. team, which has never won a team event at world level, was beaten by Britain in the first round at last year's PyeongChang Olympics, and lost to Canada in the opening round at the 2017 worlds in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
