Mikaela Shiffrin & Marco Odermatt / Hafjell / GEPA pictures
Shiffrin plans a different balance of disciplines in 2026-27, while Marco Odermatt opens the men’s season with a chance to join an exclusive group.
Mikaela Shiffrin is not walking away from slalom. She is changing how she prepares for it.
The six-time overall champion plans to skip the early slaloms at Levi, Finland, and Gurgl, Austria, before returning to the discipline at Killington, Vermont. She expects to select additional slalom starts as the season develops, while setting aside more training time for giant slalom and super-G.
As Ski Racing Media reported after Shiffrin explained her plans in a podcast interview, she calls the coming winter an “exploration season.” She wants more time to work through the questions that interest her in GS and super-G, with fewer switches between disciplines. Shiffrin has said her total number of starts may look much the same; the bigger change may come in the season’s first third and in how she uses the time between races. Read SRM’s full report on Shiffrin’s plan.
Her decision is also about finding a balance that can support a longer career. “I’m not trying to do less because I care less,” Shiffrin said in the SRM report. “I’m trying to do something different because I still care so much.”
A close women’s overall race
Shiffrin won last season’s overall title with 1,410 points. Aicher finished second with 1,323, an 87-point gap. Shiffrin earned 980 of her points in slalom, while Aicher scored across all four disciplines. Camille Rast finished third overall, according to FIS World Cup standings.
Aicher plans to keep racing all four disciplines. Associated Press reporter Eric Willemsen reported that she regretted Shiffrin’s plan to miss some slaloms but still considered the American the benchmark.
Odermatt targets a sixth straight title
Marco Odermatt begins the men’s season as the favorite to extend his run of overall titles. He has won five in a row. If he wins again, he will move closer to Marcel Hirscher’s record eight consecutive titles, according to FIS.
That pursuit comes with a candid qualification. In an Oct. 19 interview with Olympics.com, Odermatt said he felt he had already reached his peak. He also believes he can remain successful for another three to five years if he stays healthy and continues to enjoy racing, as Ski Racing Media reported.
Lucas Pinheiro Braathen is a leading challenger. He finished second in last season’s overall standings, 568 points behind Odermatt, and won the giant slalom globe. FIS lists Odermatt at 1,626 points and Braathen at 1,058.
A championship break before the Finals
The World Cup opens with giant slaloms in Sölden this weekend. The FIS calendar includes 40 women’s and 43 men’s races. The World Cup schedule pauses for the Alpine World Ski Championships in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Feb. 1-14, then resumes before the Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho, March 18-25.
North American stops include Killington, Tremblant and Beaver Creek for the women, and Copper Mountain and Beaver Creek for the men, according to the FIS calendar.
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