The World Ski Championships begin with Shiffrin nearing 100 victories, remarkable comebacks and new safety measures

SOELDEN, Austria – A series of high-profile falls in the previous alpine ski season is casting a shadow over the start of the new World Cup season this weekend as many of the injured skiers have not yet recovered.

Former overall champions Alexis Pinturault and Petra Vlhova have postponed their comeback until December, the return of Austrian all-rounder Marco Schwarz is still undetermined and Norwegian standout Aleksander Aamodt Kilde will even be absent for 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 has plenty to look forward to for ski racing fans.

American star Mikaela Shiffrin needs three more wins to reach her record-extending 100th career World Cup victory; Marco Odermatt is eyeing his fourth straight overall championship; and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen and Marcel Hirscher return, come out of retirement and exchange loyalties to Brazil and the Netherlands respectively.

Usually, Shiffrin doesn’t keep a close eye on the numbers and statistics behind her performances, but admits that impending win No. 100 means a lot to her.

“Bringing energy into sports is never a bad thing, whether you want to talk about records or statistics. I now feel energized by people raising 100. I find it incredible that people are still following this journey and are excited about it,” said the two-time Olympic champion.

Aside from adding to her total of 97 wins, Shiffrin is expected to be among the top contenders for the overall championship again, even if she will skip the downhills this season.

After winning the major world five times, Shiffrin led the standings in January with 340 points when a crash on the 2026 Olympic downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo forced the American into a six-week break from racing, leaving Lara Gut- Behrami was able to catch up. her and crowned her strong season ending with the overall title, the Swiss star’s second.

It ensured a double Swiss triumph as Odermatt dominated the men’s competition with a whopping 874 points lead in the final standings.

One of Odermatt’s standout achievements was winning two downhills within three days on home snow in Wengen – a feat he will not be able to repeat this season as no World Cup venue will host more than one downhill in one weekend to ensure the reduce the risk 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 most physically demanding discipline.

But with fatigue and exhaustion looming for speed racers competing in such a tight schedule, this time the International Ski and Snowboard Federation has spread the nine runs for the men and eight for the women across as many different locations.

In other steps to make the sport safer, FIS has made airbags under racing suits mandatory at all speed events, more than a decade after a system similar to one long used in motorcycle racing was first introduced in the ski races in 2013.

And from the 2025-2026 season, cut-resistant underwear will also be mandatory, so that skiers who crash are not injured 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 opinions are still divided among racers.

“I think the airbag is positive, but the airbag alone will not be the future,” says Vincent Kriechmayr, the 2021 downhill and super-G world champion from Austria.

“We need to ensure that we make the sport safer in many ways, but skiing, and especially downhill skiing, will never be safe. There will always be danger, but that is the tension.”

The American all-rounder River Radamus called the airbags “a good innovation. With Kilde and Pinturault and all the crashes we’ve had at speed lately, it reminds us how dangerous what we do is. If we can make those horrific, catastrophic injuries a little less possible, that can only be good for the sport.”

However, Gut-Behrami does not carry the system, and she would have preferred to keep it that way.

“We talked to our supplier and they still don’t have any regulations, so why would I put an airbag on if we don’t know what it protects?” Gut-Behrami posed and added that she initially supported the system.

“I was completely convinced and thought safety was the most important thing, but now there are many questions and I prefer not to wear one. I looked into it at MotoGP, where there are rules about what airbags should protect, but we don’t have those rules. I don’t know whether an airbag will open in three seconds or half a second, so that only creates uncertainty.”

Italian skier Elena Curtoni, who has not raced since injuring her knee in a super-G crash in December, has been wearing airbags since the start.

“If there is something extra at the security level, why not use it?” Curtoni asked, adding that she was already wearing the cut-resistant underwear.

“The reality is that I really feel safer,” said the Italian. “We go 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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