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Mikaela Shiffrin to ski at Beaver Creek as Birds of Prey World Cup adds women’s races in 2024

Mikaela Shiffrin will get a chance to race a downhill and super-G in her backyard this December

Edwards skier Mikaela Shiffrin will get the chance to race in her backyard next season. The Birds of Prey World Cup will include both men's and women's races this December.
Marco Trovati/AP photo

Mikaela Shiffrin will finally get a chance to race a World Cup at home.

The 2024 Birds of Prey event in Beaver Creek will feature men’s and women’s World Cup races on back-to-back weekends, offering Alpine skiing’s all-time winningest athlete an opportunity to compete in her backyard.

“I love racing at Beaver Creek. I have a lot of great memories skiing there, particularly from World Champs in 2015,” said Shiffrin, referring to the slalom gold medal she won nine years ago. “It’s an iconic World Cup speed track with a best in the world course crew — The Talon Crew — and the surface is always incredible.”



“This will be a celebration not to be missed,” said Mike Imhof, the president of the Vail Valley Foundation, in a press release announcing the event after the International Ski Federation confirmed its 2024-25 calendar during the 55th International Ski Congress in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The approved racing schedule includes men’s downhill training from Dec. 3-5 followed by a downhill (Dec. 6), super-G (Dec. 7) and giant slalom (Dec. 8). The women kick off the next week with three days of downhill training (Dec. 11-13), followed by a downhill (Dec. 14) and super-G (Dec. 15). In addition to racing, “concerts, family activities, the Beers of Prey beer tasting event, gatherings, celebrations and more” will surround the festivities, the press release stated.

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Vail Valley Foundation spokesperson Tom Boyd said adding women’s racing to the nonprofit’s marquee winter event has been in the works for a while.

“It just seems like after 2015, everyone you talked to in the ski racing world, whether you’re a fan or an organizer, I think everyone thought, ‘Why can’t we have women back racing on our home hill,” he said.

Boyd pointed out that Shiffrin’s star status isn’t a leveraging tool FIS would likely be persuaded by when it comes to awarding World Cup stops.

“The real impetus comes from the Vail Valley Foundation and our partners wanting to host women’s racing,” he continued. “We’ve always wanted to host women’s racing. We’ve hosted it in the past … the fact that it’s Mikaela’s hometown is the cherry on top.”

The area’s connection to women’s skiing runs deep, but it’s been nine years since female World Cup athletes raced at Vail or Beaver Creek.

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway starts a men’s World Cup downhill training run on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, in Beaver Creek.
John Locher/AP photo

During the first World Cup season in 1967, Jean-Claude Killy and Nancy Greene arose victorious in a pair of giant slaloms held in Vail. In 2011, Lindsey Vonn won a super-G on a slightly modified Birds of Prey course. Two years later, Beaver Creek’s “Raptor” was used for three World Cup test events in preparation for the 2015 World Championships — the last time women’s World Cup athletes raced in the region.

“We are so excited to bring a women’s speed World Cup to the United States,” said Sophie Goldschmidt, president and CEO of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, in the release. “The opportunity to showcase the world’s best women Alpine skiers in Colorado is an incredible opportunity for our community and fanbase.” 

Peter Gerdol, the women’s FIS event director, will inspect the course in the second week of July. For now, the plan is to have the men and women race the same run — no re-routing around the Golden Eagle Jump or The Abyss, Boyd said.

“That’s a pretty significant component to all this,” he stated.

“The slope is challenging but I am confident that our female skiers will manage to face the slope and provide a great show,” Gerdol stated in the release.

“It’s been inspiring to watch the men ski on one the best speed tracks on the World Cup tour, and I’m excited the women will get a chance to ski on it this year, too,” added Shiffrin, whose fiance, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, won back-to-back races at Birds of Prey in both 2021 and 2022.

“Plus, we’re on the road for more than half the year, so it’s going to be a treat to be racing so close to home and be able to sleep in my own bed,” Shiffrin said. “Can’t wait to see all of the fans out there cheering.”

Another perk for 2024 will be the first men’s giant slalom at Beaver Creek since 2019.

“We are all looking forward to skiing this challenging slope across three different disciplines,” Markus Waldner, the FIS World Cup men’s chief race director, stated.

Perhaps no one should be more excited than River Radamus. The Edwards skier earned his first World Cup podium in Palisades Tahoe last February and concluded his best season ever by finishing in 17th in the GS standings.

River Radamus came from the 57th starting position to claim 16th-place in the super-G at the 2022 Birds of Prey World Cup.
Sean Naylor/Vail Daily

“I’m so fired up about the newest addition to next season’s World Cup at Birds of Prey,” the tech specialist said. “Adding women to the schedule is going to give fans an opportunity to see even more of the best skiers in the world, and I’m personally so excited about the return of one of the best giant slalom tracks on the circuit.”

From an organizational standpoint, Boyd said doubling the length and size of the event will mean “a lot of logistics and a lot of planning.”

“This is a really big team effort to make something incredible happen in this community,” he said. “And yeah, it’s a big lift. It’s a big event. We think, together with our partners, we’re the best in the world at hosting this type of dual-weekend festival. We’re ready and we’ve got a lot of fun things coming down the pike.”


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