Mikaela Shiffrin with Santa in Levi Photo Credit World Cup Levi

The World Cup is experiencing a third consecutive weekend of race cancelations due to a lack of snow and warm temperatures in Central Europe.

However, the FIS snow control on November 10th has confirmed the women’s Levi slalom races will take place on November 19th and 20th, 2022.

This is only the second time in World Cup history Levi will host the opening race of the women’s season. The last time it happened was in 2006.

From FIS races to World Cup

In the 90s, the Finnish alpine ski team began building its most successful team in history. It started when national team skier Martti Uusitalo retired from competition and became a coach.

Simultaneously, both Kalle Palander from Tornio and Junior World Champion Tanja Poutiainen from Rovaniemi started showing promising international results.

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Additionally, in 1996, during Levi’s FIS races, the ski area manager, Tapio Kokko, and his associates hatched an idea to raise the event bar. They decided to host major alpine races to promote their resort internationally. The plan was to hold events on the southwest side of the hill, about three miles away from the town, on a new steep course connected to the existing facilities with a new gondola.

With an alpine team making its way to the sport’s highest levels and the support of Uusitalo, who had become the FIS Alpine Coordinator, the first European Cup races took place on the new Levi Black slope in November of 2000. Levi hosted two Europa Cup men’s slaloms and two GS races that season.

Finnish athlete Kalle Palander, 1999 SL World Champion and 2003 Slalom World Cup globe winner, finished 4th in one of the slaloms, and his teammate Sami Uotila, future WC podium skier, clinched both giant slaloms.

Then a year later Finnish racer Tanja Poutiainen raced the first Levi women’s European Cup races in 2001. She dominated the competitions.

Realizing a fairytale outcome for the Finns, Poutiainen also won her first-ever World Cup in the inaugural Levi World Cup on February 28th, 2004.

Poutiainen eventually won three World Cup event globes and an Olympic silver medal.

By moving the events to November and capitalizing on the growing Finnish enthusiasm for alpine ski racing, Levi became an instant Classic on the white circus.

Barring a few cancelations, starting in 2006, both men and women World Cup slalom skiers competed annually in Levi. However, both genders competing in Levi last happened in November 2019.

This year is the third season of only hosting women’s races in Lapland. The reason to exclusively host the women was a decision made by the FIS during the pandemic to avoid contact between men’s and women’s World Cup circuits.

Santa and his reindeer to welcome the best slalom women skiers

Since 2013 the race winners have received a unique bonus prize from the organizers, a baby reindeer. This tradition has become a favorite for all attending. The winners can name and then visit their animals at a local farm where they live. It is, of course, a fun and unique marketing tool for the event.

Levi is also considered the Santa Claus race. Every year Santa Claus brings his reindeer and visits the spectators’ area and the official ceremonies. He poses with the public and winners alike. Santa makes the short journey to Levi before his Christmas rush. Traveling to Levi takes only a couple of hours from his home in Rovaniemi! Rovaniemi is the home of the original Santa Claus village and annually welcomes many visitors from around the world.

Vlhová and Shiffrin ready for a new duel

Petra Vlhová (SVK) holds the record for the most success in Levi; she has five wins, followed by Mikaela Shiffrin who has won four.

Shiffrin, however, has clocked the most significant time gap over second place, 1.78 seconds (in 2019). The time difference is an impressive outcome, especially when we remember that last year, the gap from the leader to the final racer qualifying for the second run was about two seconds.

Levi welcomes the teams to train on the mountain a few weeks before the event. They can, thanks to the significant efforts of the ski resort and event organizers led by Petri Tuomikoski, a former national team coach and current Chief of Race.

Snow farming and artificial snowmaking allowed the resort to open the training slope on October 7th. Natural snow arrived at the end of October, and the Levi Black race trail was water injected on November 1st. The national teams could then experience the race hill starting the first week of November.

Petra Vlhová, last season’s slalom globe winner and Olympic champion, will be this year’s prerace favorite. Last season there were nine women’s World Cup slalom races; she won five. Additionally, she stood on the podium three other times and finished fourth just once. Her slalom victories, however, included the two contested in Levi.

Vlhová confessed to SRM: “My preparation in Levi is going well. When we arrived, the temperatures were quite high, but then it got colder, and we got perfect conditions. I am happy with my slalom. I feel good.”

The cancellation of the Lech / Zürs parallel race did not impact Vlhová’s plans. “We had already decided not to attend that race. We duplicated what we did last year. I prefer to stay with slalom and GS. We are, however, also planning to do some speed, but my focus remains on the technical disciplines.”

Mikaela Shiffrin, the most decorated active skier, is likely looking forward to starting her 2022-23 campaign to climb to the top of the slalom standings. Shiffrin has won the slalom globe six times and has 47 World Cup slalom victories, one more than the previous record holder, legendary Ingemar Stenmark.

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Stay tuned to learn more about Mikaela’s and the rest of the Stifel US Women’s Slalom skiers’ race previews.

*Levi is a small town located in the Lapland region about ninety miles north of the Arctic Circle. It is situated just above sea level. Levi is blessed with modest mountains, only three hundred meters high, among woods and small lakes.