American speedskater Jessica Smith lost her chance to compete in the 500-meter competition after taking a scary spill in the preliminary race on Monday. But she wasn't the only one.Though the games are only a few days old, a number of skiers and skaters have already seen their hopes painfully disappear with a loss of footing and a sudden plume of ice or snow. Smith, a 30-year-old Michigan native, was heading down the first straightaway into a curve when a Russian competitor came up from behind and the two appeared to touch skates.'I just kind of got my feet taken out from behind,' Smith told USA Today. After falling, Smith got back up and finished the race with a time of 1:13, while the heat winner clocked 43:35.While Smith said she doesn't like falling, she admits there are rare occasions when you can't avoid it.'You’ve just got to roll with the punches,' Smith said. 'It’s not the way I wanted to start out my Olympic Games, but it’s short track, and anything can happen.'I prepared myself to keep pressing forward, focus on my next event and stay after it,' she added. Smith still has the 3,000 meter race to compete in.But Smith wasn't the only skater to take a rumble on the rink in Sochi today. Falls have become more and more common in the sport with mass-start racesCompetitors now wear helmets to protect themselves in case of a fall, but they don't protect the wearer from embarrassment.Australia's enigmatic Dale Begg-Smith bowed out of his third Winter Games with a wipeout in the heats of the men's freestyle skiing moguls also on Monday.The crash brought an end to a career that brought him Olympic gold and silver medals.The 29-year-old Internet tycoon won the moguls for his adopted country in 2006 and silver in his birth city of Vancouver four years later before dropping off the radar for three years.Smith left the public eye so completely that he was dubbed a recluse.Returning to competition last year, he managed to qualify for Sochi with the help of an Australian winter sports program he joined with his brother after leaving Canada as a teenager.On Monday, though, his dreams of a third Olympic medal came to an end at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park moguls run when he failed to execute a rotation in second qualifying and ended up face first into the slushy snow.'I just wasn't feeling it tonight,' he told reporters. 'The snow was soft and I haven't skied on soft snow for four years. I wasn't feeling it, I just got a little bit off.'There wasn't much I could do when I was on my face... I'm going to go and relax my neck a little, it's a little bit stiff.'It was a rare appearance before the media for millionaire Begg-Smith.His reclusiveness - he lives mainly in the Cayman Islands - is more often than not linked to a highly lucrative Internet business he runs with his brother that was the driving force for his move to Australia.Leaving the intensive Canadian winter sports program for Australia's smaller operation would, he thought, allow him more time to focus on the business.Reports in Australia about the nature of the company resulted in him being nicknamed 'Spam Man' by local media, though, and it now looks likely that he will now depart the limelight for good.A firm 'No' answered a query over whether he would compete again and he was similarly elusive about his future plans.'I'm an international man of mystery, I will keep you all guessing,' he said. That said, he had no regrets about attempting the comeback.'When I first came back I didn't know if I could ski at all,' he said. 'It was a desperate move to come back this year. I was looking for a miraculous performance.'It was fun coming back and I'm glad I went out on my own terms. I messed up.'(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az