The alpine skiing calendar flips tomorrow, and the sport’s undisputed queen is already rewriting the rules.
Mikaela Shiffrin, the 31-year-old American with a record 110 World Cup wins and six overall Crystal Globes, will open the 2026-27 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup on Saturday in the women’s giant slalom on the Rettenbach Glacier. The race marks her 15th season opener and her first under a bold new plan she’s dubbed the “exploration season.”
After tying Austrian legend Annemarie Moser-Pröll with her sixth big Globe last winter and adding a third Olympic gold (slalom in Milan-Cortina), Shiffrin is dialing back the discipline that made her untouchable. She plans to skip the early-season slaloms in Levi, Finland, and Gurgl, Austria, saving her first slalom of the winter for Killington, Vermont, on Nov. 29. The focus shifts to giant slalom and super-G — events where she already holds the women’s World Cup win record in GS (22) but hasn’t stood on the top step since December 2023.
“I’m not trying to do less because I care less. I’m trying to do something different because I still care SO much,” Shiffrin has said. “The joy for me has never been about medals or records. We’re calling it the exploration season.” After 16 years on the circuit, she wants more space to chase curiosity in GS and speed events, recover better, and race slalom only when fully prepared. She insists the door remains open: “Slalom isn’t going anywhere.”
The move injects rare uncertainty into a sport she has dominated. Last season she racked up nine of 10 World Cup slalom victories and 980 of her 1,410 overall points. Rivals like Germany’s versatile Emma Aicher (who finished just 87 points behind for the overall title) and Switzerland’s Camille Rast now see a narrower gap. Defending Sölden GS winner and GS Crystal Globe champion Julia Scheib of Austria will also be ready on her home glacier, where the course features gradients up to 68 percent and a 370-meter vertical drop.
Shiffrin arrives as the all-time leader with 168 World Cup podiums and the only woman to win Olympic slalom gold at both 18 (Sochi 2014) and 30 (Milan-Cortina 2026). She has won twice before in Sölden (2014 and 2021). NBC Sports and Peacock will carry the women’s first run Saturday at 4 a.m. ET and the second at 7 a.m. ET, with the men’s GS (featuring overall title favorite Marco Odermatt) the following day.
Whether the exploration yields a historic seventh overall Globe or opens the door for a new contender, one thing is clear: tomorrow’s start gate in Sölden begins a season unlike any other in Shiffrin’s extraordinary career.
