Mikaela Shiffrin and Marco Odermatt kick off the alpine skiing World Cup season at the Austrian resort of Soelden this weekend, with one eye firmly focused on the Winter Olympic Games in Milano-Cortina in February.
Shiffrin, whose 101 World Cup wins are the most of any skier in history, won slalom gold in Sochi in 2014 as an 18-year-old, and then triumphed in giant slalom in Pyeongchang four years later. But at the last Olympics, in Beijing in 2022, she failed to finish both of her favoured slaloms and left without a medal. Shiffrin, who sustained a debilitating puncture wound in a crash last November, insisted this week that her skiing was still “a work in progress”. “It’s been an incredible journey to work from the end of last season, where I had a total mind-body disconnect, to where I am now,” Shiffrin said.
The American is focusing on the giant slalom and slalom this season, having ruled out competing in the downhill and unsure if she will fully commit to super-G, with the Olympics looming. “I would love to get a feeling for where I stand in super-G in a World Cup race,” she admitted. “Basically, St Moritz (on December 14) will be the opportunity for me to see where I stand, if it’s even possible to qualify” for the Olympics. “If it’s not, then I will move forward with GS and slalom and narrow my focus.” Shiffrin played down the idea that she and her rivals were focusing solely on Cortina, highlighting instead seasonal consistency. “I don’t think I know really many ski racers who would target the (Olympic) Games over World Cup performance, and the idea that most of us tend to have is the more consistently you perform through the World Cup season, the more you will have momentum, some level of confidence and competence to bring into the Games,” she said.