Mikaela Shiffrin to skip downhills during 2024-2025 World Cup season
The all-time World Cup wins leader still plans to race the super-G at Beaver Creek on Dec. 15
Giovanni Maria Pizzato/AP photo
With her 100th World Cup win in sight, Mikaela Shiffrin has decided she will not compete in any downhill races during the 2024-2025 season.
Last year, the Edwards star won nine events, including the season’s first downhill on Dec. 9 — enlarging her World Cup Alpine ski record total to 97 career victories — but injured her leg in a January downhill crash in Cortina d’Ampezzo and missed the next 11 races. During that time, she lost her overall World Cup lead to eventual winner Lara Gut-Behrami, who also won the GS and super-G globes last year.
Shiffrin spoke at the Atomic Media Day event on Thursday in Salzburg, Austria. The 29-year-old said the strain of training for all four disciplines was the main reason for her decision to drop downhill.
“Obviously, I had that crash, and that spurred us to just kind of consider what’s the most effective way for me to train and prepare for these races,” she said.
“Ideally, I want to be racing more speed. When I was talking with my team last year, they were like, look, we are trying, but it’s sort of physically impossible for you to get the preparation to be in winning shape in every event.”
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Shiffrin’s decision comes in the wake of women’s speed events getting added to the Birds of Prey World Cup in Beaver Creek. The event — the first opportunity for the Coloradan to race in her home state since 2017 — will include a super-G on Dec. 15.
“She plans to ski the super-G at Beaver Creek and is looking forward to returning for competition at the venue for the first time since 2015,” Shiffrin’s representative, Megan Harrod, told the Vail Daily in an email.
The World Cup season begins with a giant slalom on Oct. 26 in Soelden, Austria. Shiffrin said she plans to race all but two or three of the nine scheduled World Cup super-Gs this season.
“I don’t want to believe it (last January) would be my last downhill race, because I love it so much, but it’s not my priority,” she said.
“The crash in Cortina last year made her realize that she can’t feasibly prepare to be in winning shape in every event and she’s not willing to sacrifice the quality,” Harrod continued. “And she feels she’s been missing her super-G form the past couple of years, so she wants that to be a priority over downhill.”
While a centennial victory is in the likely future, Shiffrin said her North star remains the overall title, determined from accumulated points from all 37 World Cup races. She’s won it five times already — one short of the women’s record, set by Annemarie Moser-Proll.
“I used to have all sorts of goals I could list, like overall globe, GS (season title) globe, slalom globe, winning at home, all these things,” Shiffrin said. “Now I’m just like, do the best I can. Hopefully that includes some victories, and we’ll see.”
