The ski season begins as Shiffrin approaches his 100th victory, notable comebacks and new safety measures

SOELDEN, Austria — A series of high-profile accidents last season in alpine skiing are casting a shadow over the start of the new World Cup campaign this weekend, as many injured skiers have not yet recovered enough to return to the starting gates.

Former overall champions Alexis Pinturault and Petra Vlhova have postponed their returns until December, the return of Austrian all-rounder Marco Schwarz is still undetermined and Norwegian standout Aleksander Aamodt Kilde will be sidelined for up to the entire season.

Nevertheless, two giant slaloms on a glacier in Austria, with women racing on Saturday and men on Sunday, will kick off the pre-Olympic season that will give ski racing fans plenty of attractions to look forward to.

American star Mikaela Shiffrin needs three more wins to secure her record 100th career World Cup win; Marco Odermatt dreams of winning his fourth consecutive overall championship title; and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen and Marcel Hirscher return, coming out of retirement and switching allegiances to Brazil and the Netherlands, respectively.

Usually not one to look closely at the numbers and statistics behind her achievements, Shiffrin admits that getting closer to her 100th victory really means a lot to her.

“It’s never a bad thing to bring energy to your sport, whether you want to talk about records or statistics. Right now, I am energized by people who have raised 100 people. It’s amazing that people are still following this journey and are excited about it,” said the two-time Olympic champion.

In addition to adding 97 wins to her tally, Shiffrin is expected to be among the top contenders for the overall championship again, even though she will miss the downhills this season.

After winning the world title five times, Shiffrin was leading the rankings by 340 points in January when a crash on the 2026 Olympic downhill course in Cortina d’Ampezzo forced the American to take a six-week break from racing, allowing Lara Gut-Behrami to overtake her and crown her strong end to the season with the overall title, the second of the Swiss star’s career.

It marked a double triumph for Switzerland as Odermatt dominated the men’s competition with a huge lead of 874 points in the final standings.

One of Odermatt’s standout performances was winning two downhill runs in three days on home snow at Wengen – a feat he won’t be able to repeat in the coming season as no World Cup venue will stage more than one downhill run on a single weekend to reduce the risk of accidents and damage.

Last season, Val Gardena and Kitzbuehel, as well as the women’s side of Cortina and Crans-Montana, also hosted two races in the fastest and most physically demanding sport.

However, because fatigue and exhaustion threatened racers competing in such a tight schedule, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation organized nine downhill events for men and eight for women in as many different locations this time.

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

From the 2025-26 season, cut-resistant underwear will also be mandatory to prevent skiers who are involved in an accident from being injured by the sharp edges of their skis.

The airbag inflates as soon as the skier loses control and can reduce the impact of a crash on the upper body and neck, but opinions remain divided among competitors.

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

“We need to make sure we make this sport safer in many ways, but skiing, and especially downhill skiing, will never be safe. There will always be danger, but that’s the thrill.

American all-rounder River Radamus called the airbags a “good innovation.” Kilde and Pinturault and all the recent high-speed accidents remind us how dangerous what we do is. If we can make these dreaded, catastrophic injuries a little less likely, it can only be a good thing for the sport.

However, Gut-Behrami did not wear this system and the Swiss star would prefer to keep it that way.

“We talked to our supplier and there are still no regulations, so why put an airbag if we don’t know what it protects?” Gut-Behrami said, adding that she initially supported the system.

“I was fully convinced of this and thought that safety was the most important thing, but now there are many questions and I would prefer not to wear such shoes. I looked at it in MotoGP, there are rules about what airbags should protect, but we don’t have them. I don’t know if the airbag opens in three seconds or half a second, so that just creates uncertainty.

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

“If there’s an extra thing to keep you safe, why not use it?” Curtoni said, adding that she already wore cut-resistant underwear.

“The reality is that I really feel safer,” said the Italian. “We go out there with knives under our feet.”

___

AP Sports Writer Daniella Matar in Milan contributed to this report.

___

Eric Willemsen on X: