GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Five practices were supposed to prepare the Americans for this, and they knew at the second intermission Slovenia was going to come out punching.

The preparation and the knowledge were not enough to fend off the fatigue as the United States blew a two-goal lead and lost a 3-2 stunner in overtime Wednesday night in the Olympic opener for both teams. Slovenia captain Jan Mursak scored the tying goal with 1:37 left in regulation and the winner 38 seconds into overtime.

Long before that, the U.S. started letting the game slip away with mistakes all over the ice.

“We started turning the puck over in our zone and they were getting chances and that led to some momentum for them,” said goaltender Ryan Zapolski, who allowed three goals on 25 shots. “We can’t give up those chances that we were giving up out of nothing there in the third. That really kills your momentum. And they scored a goal off one of them and from that point we were kind of on our heels.”

Brian O’Neill and Jordan Greenway, who became the first African-American hockey player for the U.S. at an Olympics, scored to build the 2-0 lead in a dominant showing, and the shots were 24-12 after two periods. Coach Tony Granato pointed out that Slovenia probably should have been the more tired team from playing so much in its defensive zone, but there was none of that from a group that has only one player — Mursak — with NHL experience.

In the game because of goalie Gasper Kroselj, who stopped 34 of 36 shots, Slovenia came to life when Jan Urbas scored 5:37 into the third period. With fans chanting “SLO-VE-NI-A,” the perennial underdogs started pouring it on.

In position for gold

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Mikaela Shiffrin turned in an electric opening run of the Olympic giant slalom Thursday, sitting in second position and in prime position for a gold medal.

The 22-year-old American standout trails leader Manuela Moelgg of Italy by a scant 0.20 seconds heading into the final run later in the day at Yongpyong Alpine Center. The sun was out and the wind muted.

Finally, the women were racing.

Shiffrin was just happy for that, given all the postponements due to weather and strong wind. The women’s giant slalom was initially scheduled for Monday but moved to Thursday. The slalom was supposed to be Wednesday but got pushed to Friday.

Quad twist lands

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Alexa Scimeca-Knierim and Chris Knierim became the first Americans to land a quad twist in an Olympic competition when they hit the four-revolution element in the pairs free skate.

The rest of their program didn’t go nearly as well.

Knierim fell on both of their triple jumps, a salchow and the toeloop that was supposed to lead into a double toeloop. The married couple was also out of synch on their combination spin and a bit shaky on their throw triple flip.

They’ll wind up far out of medal contention, but they’ve already had a successful Olympics.