Portes du Soleil in France’s Haute Savoie plays host to the 43rd Junior World Ski Championships. 

The 2024 FIS Alpine Junior World Ski Championships opened on January 30 with the men’s and women’s downhill races, held in Châtel, one of 12 resorts in Portes du Soleil, France. While the weather has been warm and sunny at the lower elevations, Châtel features north-facing slopes at the end of a valley, so the track stayed cold and hard for the speed events. 

Women’s Downhill

Austrian Victoria Olivier took gold in the women’s race, starting with bib 30 for a crowd-pleasing attack from the back finish. Olivier, whose ACL injury had sidelined her, won the previous day’s training run, so her victory wasn’t a complete surprise. “But training and racing is always something different,” she said. “At the bottom, I thought my skiing could be better, but then I saw the green light. The feeling is indescribable.” Switzerland’s Malorie Blanc took second place, only a hundredth of a second slower than Olivier, and Finland’s Rosa Pohjolainen took third (+.40). 

For the U.S. Team, Allison Mollin of Truckee, California, in her first Junior Worlds appearance, snagged a top-ten finish with 7th place (+.95). Expectations were high for Mollin, who’d come 2nd and 5th in the training runs. “I was a little nervous in spots and overthinking it,” Mollin said. “But I still ended up with decent moments. My goal was top-10,” said Mollin, who has been racing downhill at Europa Cups and trained at Copper Mountain early season, looking to get more time in speed. She’s also taking classes at the University of Colorado at Boulder while racing for the Stifel U.S. Ski Team. “I’m doing online classes, so I’ve never actually been on the campus,” she said. 

Teammate Mary Bocock landed in 20th place.  “My game plan was to combine the top and bottom of my two training runs, but I sort of peeled that back a little and skied more cautiously,” Bocock said. “And I still have yet to nail one of the jumps.” But she was happy to have her younger sister, Elisabeth, competing in her first Junior Worlds, cheering her on from the finish. 

Men’s Downhill

In the men’s downhill race, Livio Hiltbrand of Switzerland took the top podium spot, followed by Italians Gregorio Bernardi (+.35) and Max Perathoner (+.47). 

The Stifel U.S. Ski Team had three racers on the start list for the downhill. Hunter Salani of Vail, Colorado, was the top U.S. finisher; he placed 19th. “The track was really fast and it stayed in awesome condition over the last three days,” Salani said. “The course had two double gates and a triple, but it flowed nicely. And when I came into the finish…it’s so cool how many people came out for the races.”

Mattias Wilson, of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, cracked the top 30 with a 27th place finish in his Junior Worlds debut and his first European race—all on a borrowed pair of 223-cm downhill skis. “The track was really fast, especially on the longer skis,” he said. “But I’m happy with my result.”

Justin Bigatel, who ended the race in 19th, was less than enthused about his finish. “There was a section with a double gate that goes into a roller. You had to take it really deep, and I just pinched it and dumped my speed.” But Bigatel, who will age out next year, is staying positive and enjoying the experience. 

One reason this annual event appeals to ski races is its international flavor. Like in the Olympics, ski racers come from every corner of the globe. It’s not just a showdown of alpine ski-racing powerhouse nations. 

Irish make their first DH Apperance

This was the first time the Irish national team had junior racers competing in the downhill event at the Junior World Ski Championships. “In 1997, there was an Irish downhiller at the World Championships [in Sestriere], but we’ve never had a downhill racer at the Junior Worlds,” said Giorgio Marchesini after the race. “We made history today.” (The Irish racer at the World Champs was downhiller Patrick-Paul Schwarzacher-Joyce, who became Ireland’s first Olympic ski racer, competing in the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano.) 

The Irish team also had the youngest racer competing in the women’s downhill field. Eabha McKenna, who is 17 (2006 birth year), raced despite little experience in the discipline. “I was a bit nervous in the training because this was only my second time doing downhill. My first time was just a month ago in Val Gardena,” McKenna said. “I wasn’t sending it as much as the other girls, but I’m happy enough with my performance today.” On the men’s side, also racing for the Emerald Isle, were Ethan Bouchard and Finlay Wilson. Wilson, at 16, was also the youngest racer on the men’s start list. 

“With all these smaller nations, it feels like a global field. You can see how we stack up as a nation, not just individually,” Mollin said. “In the dining hall, sometimes we tend to talk to other English-speaking teams, but really, ski racing has its own language.”