Central Plains FFA Chapter

10/24 06:29 CDT Shiffrin, Odermatt are favorites as injury-marred Alpine skiing World Cup heads into Olympic season Shiffrin, Odermatt are favorites as injury-marred Alpine skiing World Cup heads into Olympic season By ERIC WILLEMSEN Associated Press SLDEN, Austria (AP) --- The two giant slaloms on a glacier in the Austrian Alps that traditionally open the Alpine skiing World Cup season will get different winners this weekend with Federica Brignone and Aleksander Steen Olsen out injured. They are not the only prominent skiers sitting out the women's GS on Saturday or the men's race the following day, as injuries and how to prevent them remains a major issue with the World Cup heading into its 60th season, highlighted by the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February. The protective air bag, which inflates before a skier who crashes hits the ground in a speed race, and cut-resistant underwear have become mandatory. The International Ski and Snowboard Federation announced plans to step up continuing efforts to improve course safety, both for races and training, after Italian skier Matteo Franzoso died in a downhill training crash in Chile in September.

New season The season consists of 38 men's and 37 women's races. The events are mainly scheduled throughout Europe, but the men have two series of races in Colorado --- in Copper Mountain on Nov. 27-28 and in Beaver Creek on Dec. 4-7 --- and the women race in Copper Mountain on Nov. 29-30 and in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, the week after. Brignone won the women's season opener last year after first-run leader Mikaela Shiffrin dropped to fifth, and the Italian standout went on to win the GS and downhill season titles and her second overall championship in what was the best season of her career. In April, though, Brignone broke multiple bones in her left leg and tore her ACL during a giant slalom crash at the Italian championships. With her return on snow still pending, Brignone could miss her home Olympics.

Stronger Shiffrin Shiffrin crashed at her home giant slalom in Killington, Vermont, in November, and something punctured the American's side and caused severe damage to her oblique muscles. Shiffrin returned two months later but reduced her schedule for the rest of the season to her core events of slalom and GS, still earning record career race wins 100 and 101 in the process. "I feel much stronger now than at the end of (last) season," said Shiffrin, who had to deal with lingering post-traumatic stress disorder following the crash. "It's a work in progress but I am really, really happy with the improvements that my team, that we all made. But you know you can't control everything. We have to dive into the season with all the unknowns and dive into it with a full heart and strong turns, hopefully." In Saturday's race, Shiffrin can lay the foundation for what might become another record-setting season for the American. If she wins the slalom standings, Shiffrin would become the first skier, female or male, to hold nine titles in a single discipline. And by winning the big crystal globe, Shiffrin would match the women's best mark of six overall World Cup titles set by Austrian great Annemarie Moser-Prll in the 1970s. Swiss two-time champion and last season's runner-up Lara Gut-Behrami, who has announced her retirement after the 2025-26 season, might be Shiffrin's closest challenger.

Vonn's hopes Lindsey Vonn, who returned to the circuit last year after nearly six years away from racing, recently added Norwegian great Aksel Lund Svindal to her coaching staff. The American great hopes to add to her total of 82 career wins.

?Balancing act' for Odermatt Steen Olsen led a Norwegian sweep of the podium in the first men's GS last year, in which pre-race favorite Marco Odermatt skied out in the first run. Steen Olsen opted not to start in Sunday's race to get more treatment on a persistent knee injury. Odermatt also didn't finish the second GS of last season, but the Swiss star still convincingly won the season title in the discipline, the super-G and downhill globes, and his fourth straight overall championship. "I worked hard to improve in downhill last season, especially the gliding part. And while my feeling there got better, it went at the expense of the GS a little bit," said Odermatt, the leader of the Swiss team that earned 17 race wins last season. "When I want to become better in one discipline, I have to accept compromises elsewhere. It's a balancing act you have do as an allrounder." A strong favorite for the overall title again, Odermatt could become the third skier with at least five overall World Cup titles, after Austria's Marcel Hirscher and Luxembourg's Marc Girardelli, and only the second after Hirscher to win five in a row.

Big-name absentees Hirscher, who won the sport's biggest prize eight consecutive times between 2012 and 2019, returned after a five-year absence last season, competing for the Netherlands. He ended his comeback season in December after just three events when he injured his knee in a training run. He planned to race again this season but decided to skip Sunday's opener after suffering from illness. Hirscher adds to a long list of big-name absentees, which includes Brignone's teammate Marta Bassino and Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhov on the women's side, while long-term injured racers like Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Cyprien Sarrazin sit out the men's race. On the other side, 2021 overall champion Alexis Pinturault is back in the start gate after knee injuries cut the Frenchman's last two seasons short, though he will reduce his schedule to only giant slaloms. ___ Eric Willemsen on X: https://x.com/eWilmedia ___ AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing