Electrifying Alpine ski season set to start in style following sensational announcements

Mikaela Shiffrin (USA/Atomic) swerving some Slaloms, Lucas Pinheiro Braathen (BRA/Atomic) targeting the Super G and Lara Gut-Behrami (SUI) cheering on from the sidelines as 22-year-old Emma Aicher (GER/Head) looks to take over; welcome to the exciting new world of the 2027 Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup season.

It has been a wildly eventful seven months since the planet’s finest last took to the slopes. Here is everything you need to know as we count down until the curtain raiser in Sölden, Austria this weekend, 24-25 October, with the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships shining like a jewel in February 2027.

Shiffrin shocks with speed focus

From the moment she made her maiden tour appearance as a 15-year-old in Spindleruv Mlyn in 2011, Shiffrin has hogged the headlines. But now the most successful World Cup skier of all time has grabbed centre stage not for what she is doing on the slopes, but for decisions she has taken off them.

For the first time since that teenage debut, Shiffrin will rarely be seen on Slalom skis this season. Instead, the woman who secured a record-extending ninth World Cup Slalom Globe in March will place her primary focus on the Giant Slalom and the Super G, two disciplines in which she has long been short of her best.

It is an electrifying development that throws up an almost endless list of fascinating questions.

Just two years after suffering PTSD following a heavy crash in Killington, can Shiffrin rediscover the form that made her the most successful women’s World Cup GS skier to date? Can she find the speed to challenge in the Super G, a discipline in which she has not won since December 2022? Who will step into Shiffrin’s place in the Slalom? What does all this mean for the Overall Globe?

Fans will get their first answers when the American superstar takes on Sölden’s famous Rettenbach Glacier on Saturday, with the first run of the women’s GS kicking off at 10:00 CET.

Shiffrin will then skip the traditional Slalom season openers in Levi and Gurgl - races she has won a combined 11 times - heading back to North America instead to focus on more GS in Killington and Tremblant, and then the speed events kicking off in Beaver Creek.

Four legends missing as one returns

Add on the fact that the season will open without Gut-Behrami, Sofia Goggia (ITA/Atomic), Federica Brignone (ITA/Rossignol) and Lindsey Vonn (USA/Head) – a quartet that boasts 198 World Cup wins between them – and it is no wonder intrigue levels are at their maximum.

While Gut-Behrami has called time on her remarkable career, Goggia is hoping to have recovered from a pair of viral infections in time to start her defence of the Super G Globe in Beaver Creek, USA 11-13 December.

Brignone will likely join her compatriot to train in North America but is unlikely to be ready to race. The 36-year-old had a further operation in August to remove a metal plate and screws from her leg and has barely put on skis since securing her stunning Olympic double. Vonn has been named in the wider USA ski team, but no date has been put on a possible comeback.

A fifth icon, Petra Vlhova (SVK/Rossignol) is back however, ready to put smiles on faces. The 2022 Olympic Slalom champion will race in Sölden for the first time in three years after a challenging time blighted by injury.

Challengers line up

Three of those hoping to etch their name on the Overall Globe for the first time, Aicher, Camille Rast (SUI/Head) and Alice Robinson (NZL/Head) will be looking to jump ahead from the Sölden gun.

If it is the German who continues her improvement in the GS – she landed her first two top-10s in the discipline in 2026 – then the others better watch out. Three wins in the Super G and two in the Downhill, plus five Slalom podiums, all in the past 18 months, surely places Aicher as the favourite to go one better than last season and succeed Shiffrin as the Big Globe champion.

Rast may disagree. The only person other than Shiffrin to win a World Cup Slalom last season is primed to take full advantage of the American’s absence. The huge strides Rast took in the GS last season – a first win and top six finishes in eight out of 10 races – could be crucial too. A World Championships in her hometown of Crans-Montana also makes the Swiss star a favourite to defend her Slalom gold.

Two years after becoming New Zealand’s first ever World Championship medal winner with silver in the GS, Robinson will hoping to go one better on Swiss snow. And, like her rivals, Robinson is now a real threat in more than one discipline. The GS wunderkid won last season’s SG opener in St Moritz, before following up with two second places in her next four races.

While those three seem in prime position to step up, Laura Pirovano’s (ITA/Head) shock emergence showed nothing is predictable in ski racing. In early February the Italian had never been on a World Cup podium before, six weeks later she was Downhill champion, having won twice in two days in Val di Fassa and then, with everything on the line, producing one of the skis of the season at the World Cup Finals.

Can she produce more of the same? Will reigning Olympic and world Downhill gold medallist Breezy Johnson (USA/Atomic) win a World Cup race? Can Julia Scheib (AUT/Rossignol) keep the Austrian smiles – and beer – flowing in Sölden with another season-setting GS victory?

There is only one way to find out.

New night races headline calendar changes

Talking of calendars, there are some riveting new stops to check out on the Audi World Cup tour this season, as well as returns to some favourite locations.

The Austrian Alps are always the place to be during holiday season, but Dachstein West / Gosau may take that to new levels 28-29 December, with a women’s GS and Slalom ready to wow the crowds.

That is not it for the Austrians, with Flachau getting a new year GS night race on 4 January, to go with the iconic starry-skied Slalom a night later. In a similar vein, the men will go in a new night Slalom in Alta Badia, alongside the popular GS.

Elsewhere, Cortina and Lenzerheide are back on the women’s circuit, while the men’s tech skiers will go in Are, Sweden for the first time.

Pinheiro Braathen targets ‘missing pieces’

Pinheiro Braathen will be among those looking to celebrate in Are. Although fascinatingly, the Brazilian will not only be seen on the short skis this winter.

Months after beating Marco Odermatt (SUI/Stöckli) to both the Olympic and World Cup GS titles, Pinheiro Braathen is targeting “two missing pieces”. The first is taking the Big Globe from the Swiss man’s grasp. To do that Pinheiro Braathen knows he needs to start scoring points in a third discipline, the Super G.

It will not be easy. Pinheiro Braathen has only ever started three World Cup Super G races. But having already landed Brazil a first ever Olympic medal and World Cup gong – and targeting the nation a first World Championship gold in February next year – the 26-year-old is used to defying expectation.

The challenges to Odermatt’s reign will come thick and fast. Loic Meillard (SUI/Rossignol) is one of the men’s form skiers. Current Olympic and world Slalom champion, Meillard has finished second twice and third once in the past three GS Globe races. If he can start the season a little hotter – last time out it took until mid-December before he secured a first podium – the Rossignol man will challenge.

Like his compatriot, Franjo von Allmen (SUI/Head) will head to Crans-Montana to defend World Championship gold. The young speedster has already shown he can do it on the biggest stages of all – three Olympic and two World titles – can he now do it week-in-week-out?

Odi out to assert authority

Not that Odermatt will be quaking in his ski boots just yet. So dominant has the Stöckli skier been for so long that it is easy to overlook just how good he was last season. A fifth successive Overall crown, alongside the Downhill and Super G Globes and a second in the GS is seriously impressive.  

In fact, Odermatt has won 16 of 20 Globes he has competed for in the past five seasons. Although, a return of one gold (2025 Super G World Championships) and two silvers from his past two major championships, may mean Odi will prioritise Crans-Montana as the place to once again assert his authority.

A longed-for win down the Streif in the Hahnenkamm Downhill on 23 January will also surely be circled in the diary.

Rest of the men’s best

Unlike the women’s side, there is a fairly settled feeling to the men’s line-ups. Icons Dominik Paris (ITA/Nordica) – fresh from securing an Olympic bronze down his slope in Bormio – and Henrik Kristoffersen (NOR/Head) are back. Both will chase yet more glory.

As will Clement Noël (FRA/Dynastar). The 2022 Olympic Slalom champion found a level of consistency last season (nine top 10s in 11 races) that if matched with even a proportion of the wins from previous seasons will mean a first Globe is in sight. Not that reigning Slalom World Cup champ Atle Lie McGrath (NOR/Head) will give his gong up easily.

In the sad absence of Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (NOR/Atomic) who ruptured his Achilles tendon during pre-season in Chile, Italy’s new sensation Giovanni Franzoni (Rossignol) will join those looking to loosen Odermatt’s grip on the speed races.

Excitingly, he will be joined by Marco Schwarz (AUT/Atomic). While not quite at Shiffrin’s level, the great Austrian all-rounder has surprised the Slalom world by deciding to hang up his short skis. Globe winner in 2021, Schwarz will pour all his energy into the Downhill, the Super G and the GS – starting in Sölden.

Join us there for a season guaranteed to thrill.