Mikaela Shiffrin: How to Watch the Semmering World Cup

Mikaela Shiffrin heads into the Semmering stop of the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup riding one of the most remarkable slalom runs the sport has ever seen. She wraps up the 2025 calendar year with two races in Austria, competing on Saturday and Sunday, with live coverage available in the United States on NBCSN and Peacock.

The weekend features two of alpine skiing’s most technical disciplines. Shiffrin will contest the giant slalom on Saturday, followed by her signature event, the slalom, on Sunday. Both races take place in Semmering, a long-standing World Cup venue that traditionally attracts a strong field and large crowds.

Shiffrin’s recent slalom form has been nothing short of historic. Dating back to last season, she has won five consecutive World Cup slalom races, each by a margin of more than one second. That level of dominance has never been seen before in the discipline. Prior to this streak, no skier—male or female—had ever won more than three World Cup slaloms in a row by such decisive margins. Her consistency and speed have set her apart even by her own extraordinarily high standards.

In giant slalom, Shiffrin has also shown encouraging progress this season after overcoming a significant setback. On November 30, 2024, she suffered a crash in a GS race that resulted in punctured oblique muscles. Since returning, she has steadily regained form, posting finishes of fourth, 14th, sixth, and fourth in her GS starts this season. While she has yet to return to the podium in the discipline, these results suggest she is close to peak performance again.

The competitive landscape in women’s slalom looks different this season due to the absence of one of Shiffrin’s longtime rivals. Petra Vlhova of Slovakia, the 2022 Olympic gold medalist, has been sidelined since a crash in January 2024 that required multiple knee surgeries. With Vlhova out, Shiffrin’s main challengers in slalom currently include Lara Colturi of Albania and Camille Rast of Switzerland, both of whom have delivered strong performances this winter.

In giant slalom, the competition has been particularly fierce. Alice Robinson of New Zealand and Julia Scheib of Austria have emerged as the top GS skiers so far this season, setting the benchmark Shiffrin will aim to match or surpass in Semmering.

The FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup season runs annually from October through March, pausing briefly in February for the Olympic Games. Following the Semmering races, the women’s tour continues with another technical doubleheader, featuring a giant slalom and slalom on January 3–4 in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, where Shiffrin will once again be a central figure to watch.