SOELDEN, Austria (AP) — A series of high-profile crashes in the previous Alpine skiing season throws a shadow over the start of the new World Cup campaign this weekend, as many of the injured skiers have not sufficiently recovered yet for a return to the start gates.
Former overall champions Alexis Pinturault and Petra Vlhova have postponed their comebacks until December, Austrian all-rounder Marco Schwarz’s return is still undetermined, and Norwegian standout Aleksander Aamodt Kilde will even sit out the entire season.
Still, two giant slaloms on a glacier in Austria, with the women racing on Saturday and the men on Sunday, will open a pre-Olympic season that offers ski racing fans a lot to look forward to.
American star Mikaela Shiffrin needs three more victories to get her record-extending 100th career World Cup win; Marco Odermatt eyes his fourth straight overall championship; and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen and Marcel Hirscher return, coming out of retirement and switching allegiances to Brazil and the Netherlands, respectively.
Usually not keeping a close eye on the numbers and stats behind her achievements, Shiffrin admits that approaching win No. 100 does mean a lot to her.
“Bringing energy to the sport is never a bad thing, whether you want to talk about records or statistics. I’m feeling right now energized by people bringing up 100. I think it’s incredible people are still following along this journey and excited about it,” the two-time Olympic champion said.
Apart from adding to her tally of 97 wins, Shiffrin is expected to be among the main contenders for the overall championship again, even though she will skip the downhills this season.
Having won the big globe five times, Shiffrin led the standings by 340 points in January when a crash on the 2026 Olympic downhill course in Cortina d’Ampezzo forced the American into a six-week break from racing, enabling Lara Gut-Behrami to overtake her and crown her strong finish to the season with the overall title, the Swiss star's second.
It made for a double Swiss triumph, since Odermatt dominated the men’s competition with a whopping 874 point-lead in the final standings.
One of Odermatt’s standout performances was winning two downhills within three days on home snow in Wengen — a feat he won’t be able to repeat in the upcoming season as no World Cup venue will stage more than one downhill in a single weekend to reduce risks of crashes and injuries.
Last season, Val Gardena and Kitzbuehel, and on the women's side Cortina and Crans-Montana, also hosted two races in the sport’s fastest and physically most demanding discipline.
But with fatigue and exhaustion looming for speed racers competing in such a tight schedule, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation has spread the nine downhills for the men and the eight for the women over as many different venues this time.
In other steps to make the sport safer, FIS has made airbags under the race suits compulsory at all speed events, more than a decade after a system similar to the one long used in motorcycle racing was first introduced to ski racing in 2013.
And as of the 2025-26 season, cut-resistant underwear will become mandatory as well, preventing skiers who crash from getting hurt by the sharp edges of their skis.
The airbag inflates as soon as a skier loses control and can reduce the impact of a crash on the upper body and neck, but still divides opinions among racers.
“I find the airbag positive, but the airbag alone will not be the future,” said Vincent Kriechmayr, the 2021 downhill and super-G world champion from Austria.
“We must see that we make the sport safer in many aspects, but skiing, and especially the downhill, will never be safe. There will always be danger, but that is the thrill.”
American all-rounder River Radamus called the airbags “a good innovation. With Kilde and Pinturault and all the crashes that we’ve had in speed recently, it's a reminder of how dangerous what we do is. If we can make those horrific, catastrophic injuries a little less possible, that’s only a good thing for the sport.”
However, Gut-Behrami has not been wearing the system, and the Swiss star would have preferred to keep it that way.
“We talked with our supplier and they still have got no regulations, so why should I put on an airbag when we don’t know what it protects?” said Gut-Behrami, adding she initially supported the system.
“I was fully convinced and thought safety is the most important, but now there are a lot of questions and I would rather not wear one. I have looked into it at MotoGP, there are rules there what the airbags should protect, but we don’t have those rules. I don’t know whether an airbag opens in three seconds or in half a second, so that only creates uncertainty.”
Italian skier Elena Curtoni, who hasn’t raced since injuring her knee in a super-G crash in December, has been wearing airbags since the beginning.
“If there’s an extra thing on a safety level, why wouldn’t you use it?” said Curtoni, adding she has already been wearing the cut-resistant underwear as well.
“The reality is that I really feel safer,” the Italian said. “We go out there with knives under our feet.”
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AP Sports Writer Daniella Matar in Milan contributed to this report.
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Eric Willemsen on X: https://x.com/eWilmedia
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More AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
Eric Willemsen, The Associated Press
