Olympic sports weekend preview: Mikaela Shiffrin poised to push historic slalom run even further

As the Olympic sports calendar resumes this weekend, Mikaela Shiffrin headlines the action with a chance to extend what is already one of the most remarkable stretches of slalom skiing the sport has ever seen.

Shiffrin arrives at the final Alpine skiing World Cup stop of 2025 carrying extraordinary momentum into Semmering, Austria, where a giant slalom and slalom are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday (live on NBCSN and Peacock). The American has captured victory in her last five World Cup slaloms, a run that began late last season, and each win has come by a margin of more than one second. No skier — male or female — had previously managed more than three consecutive slalom victories by such a decisive gap.

Semmering has also been fertile ground for Shiffrin in the past. She has won seven of her last nine starts there across slalom and giant slalom, although her most recent appearance at the venue came in December 2022.

The weekend begins with the giant slalom, an event in which Shiffrin continues to build confidence following a serious crash in November 2024 that kept her sidelined for two months. Her GS results this season — fourth, 14th, sixth and fourth — suggest steady progress as she works back toward peak form.

Elsewhere on the Alpine circuit, the men’s World Cup visits Livigno, Italy, for a super-G on Saturday. The venue will also host freestyle skiing and snowboarding at the 2026 Winter Olympics, making the race an early test run ahead of the Games.

Swiss star Marco Odermatt remains the benchmark in the discipline. The reigning world champion in the super-G, he has topped the World Cup super-G standings in each of the last four seasons and could arrive at the Olympics as the favorite across downhill, super-G and giant slalom.

From an American perspective, Ryan Cochran-Siegle continues to show encouraging signs. The 2022 Olympic silver medalist in the super-G — the United States’ only Alpine medal in Beijing — is enjoying his strongest season of the current Olympic cycle so far. He sits seventh in the World Cup downhill standings, including a runner-up finish, and 16th in super-G, with a season-best result of 10th.

In cross-country skiing, attention turns to the Tour de Ski, a multi-stage World Cup competition that begins Sunday and runs through January 4, with all six stages taking place in Italy. Jessie Diggins, the only North American ever to win the Tour, has claimed the title twice and currently leads the overall World Cup standings in what she has announced will be her final season before retirement.