'The queen' Shiffrin levels up in her challenge against herself

2014 and 2021. These are the only two occasions on which the greatest skier of all time, Mikaela Shiffrin, has started the season with a victory. Once again, the giant slalom in Sölden opens the Alpine Ski World Cup. The 61st edition gets underway. And it is already the fifteenth for Shiffrin.

The girl who made her debut at 15, on March 11, 2011, is today the great empress of alpine skiing. Having surpassed the barrier of 100 victories, she heads to the Rettenbach Glacier with 110 wins and 168 World Cup podiums. Mikaela now faces a new challenge: becoming the first woman to win the big Crystal Globe seven times.

The six titles that Shiffrin shares with Austrian Annemarie Moser-Pröll have been built on her overwhelming dominance in slalom: nine titles in the discipline and 73 of her 110 World Cup victories.

But for the season that starts this Saturday, Shiffrin has decided to substantially change her goals. On the road to turning 32 (13-3-1995), the body, because of injuries, and the mind, because of past episodes of anxiety, are sending Mikaela warnings. For that reason, the Vail Express is approaching the season with less emphasis on slalom and priority given to giant slalom and super-G.

“It’s not a renunciation of slalom. I will race them, but less often and when I am well prepared to face them. It’s a season of exploration,” she says.

That decision creates a completely different scenario in the battle for the overall title. Because last season, of the 1,410 points that gave her the big Crystal Globe, 980 (69.5%) came through slalom: nine victories in ten races, second in the other, and gold at the Games.

"With Shiffrin less active in the great technical specialty, the intrigue skyrockets. German Emma Aicher, the woman of all specialties, presents herself at the head of the contenders for the great throne. Now without Lara Gut, retired, and with Federica Brignone more concerned with staying healthy than with winning, giant slalom experts like Julia Scheib or Alice Robinson have a lot to say.

Vonn is inscrutable

"In the world of the speed skiers, things begin without Lindsey Vonn. After her terrible crash at the Cortina Games and the various operations, she has not announced any retirement. In fact, the United States team has included her among the twelve women on its squad. She, at 42 years old, hopes to return in 2027-28.

The evil of Chikungunya

Sofia Goggia has her body covered in scars. “I have won much more than I dreamed of; I have won much less than what injuries have allowed me to,” the woman from Bergamo told MARCA in an interview in which she could not hold back her tears when recalling her very serious crash in 2024, in Casola di Ponte di Legno, Italy. The accident caused a double fracture in her right leg (tibia and tibial malleolus).

Goggia will not be in Sölden. This time it is not a crash that is keeping last season’s best super-G skier sidelined. It is a mosquito. The one that bit her during the final preparation phase in Argentina. That bite carried the venom of the Chikungunya virus. It is an indigenous term meaning “the one who bends over,” due to the hunched posture people adopt because of extreme joint pain.

Goggia, very weakened, had to return urgently to Italy, interrupt her preparations and forget about the Sölden Giant.

Swiss dictatorship

The season gets underway for the men a day later. The colors of the first winning flag will already be known. On their circuit, the one starting out as the bookmakers' favorite is Switzerland's. The power of the Swiss squad has prevailed in recent editions. In the previous seven, the Nations Cup has been theirs after the Austrian skiers gave no quarter between 1993 and 2019.

That great dominance is rooted in the figure of a skier who, at 29, is defining an era: Marco Odermatt. After Hirscher’s, who will not race in Sölden following his return as a Dutchman, the Swiss star has taken command with an iron hand. In the speed events, backed by a formidable team, Odermatt is looking for rivals.

He had them last season at the Gigante. Because that’s where Lucas Pinheiro emerged as the key figure to change history and place Brazil and South America in the alpine first world. Behind it lies the story of renouncing the country where he became an elite skier, Norway, to take refuge under his mother's flag.

This season begins with the retirement of one of the greatest among the greats: the Frenchman Alexis Pinturault. We will no longer see the Englishman Dave Ryding or Adrien Théaux either, and it remains to be seen what happens with the Norwegian Kilde

The Spanish team

Spanish skiing will be represented in the World Cup by six skiers, all of them men. Aleix Aubert, Ander Mintegui -after his serious knee injury in December 2025-, Joaquim Salarich, Albert Ortega and Juan Del Campo.