Mikaela Shiffrin is adjusting her racing strategy for the upcoming season, focusing on slalom, giant slalom, and super-G events. This change aims to help her reach 100 career World Cup victories.
Shiffrin, with 97 World Cup wins, has raced slalom and giant slalom since 2011 and added super-G and downhill events in 2015. However, she will skip downhill races this season due to training challenges.
Last season’s poor weather conditions limited Shiffrin’s training in primary events, leading to a crash in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. She returned in March, winning her last two slalom races.
Shiffrin cited difficulties balancing training for all four events. Her team advised that preparing for every event simultaneously is “physically impossible” due to unpredictable weather and different training locations.
This season, Shiffrin targets super-G events, hoping to compete in all but two or three of the nine scheduled World Cup super-Gs. She will reassess her downhill strategy afterward.
Shiffrin is three wins away from becoming the second Winter Olympic athlete to reach 100 World Cup victories. She broke the Alpine World Cup career wins record of 86 in 2022 and doesn’t consider 100 a personal goal but sees it as an opportunity to promote snow sports.
The upcoming season includes the World Championships in February and World Cup Finals in March. Shiffrin’s guiding star is the World Cup overall title, which she has won five times. She also shared updates on her fiancé, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who’s recovering from injuries.
