Taking stock: Shiffrin and Odermatt headline exciting Alpine season

As American superstar Mikaela Shiffrin keeps piling up the wins, her seemingly inevitable march towards becoming the most successful World Cup Alpine ski racer of all time in the weeks and months ahead is on everyone's mind – except her own.

"I don't wish for anything in skiing," Shiffrin said when asked about her goals for the second half of the season following her spectacular triple triumph in Semmering to close out 2022.

"I wish for things like a happy, healthy family, and that's different than skiing."

Whether she dreams about accolades or not, more of them are coming for the 27-year-old, who has won six of her 12 races this season to continue her assault on the all-time record books.

Her three wins in Semmering gave her 80 World Cup victories, two shy of former teammate Lindsey Vonn's women's record of 82 and six short of the overall record of 86, held by Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark.

Few would bet against Shiffrin topping Vonn this season — and possibly Stenmark too. Shiffrin has won at least three races after the new year in seven different seasons, and has won at least seven twice, in 2018 (7) and 2019 (9).

Besides chasing the all-time victory mark, Shiffrin leads the slalom standings with three wins this season and can win the slalom globe for the seventh time, breaking the women's record of six which she shares with Switzerland's Vreni Schneider.

Shiffrin has also won twice in giant slalom and once in super-G this season to lead by 369 points in the race for the overall title. She can win the big globe for the fifth time, one behind Austrian legend Annemarie Moser-Proell's women's record of six.

While Shiffrin has gone about her pursuit of history in her usual unassuming way, Italian speed queen Sofia Goggia's rollercoaster career has reached new heights this season with exploits worthy of Hollywood.

Goggia said she felt as though her life was a movie after her extraordinary triumph in the second St. Moritz downhill in mid-December, just 24 hours after breaking her hand and being taken by helicopter to Milan for surgery.

It was Goggia's third victory in four downhill races this season, and the 2018 Olympic champion appears on her way to a fourth downhill globe and third in succession.

With exactly 100 World Cup wins between them, including nine from 15 races this season, standing atop the podium is nothing new for Goggia and Shiffrin, but it is for this season's other headline act on the women's tour, Switzerland's Wendy Holdener.

The popular racer had won Alpine combined and city events on the World Cup circuit prior to this season, but in her best discipline, slalom, she had finished second or third 30 times without a victory – with 22 of those races won by Shiffrin.

Holdener finally broke through in Killington in November for her first slalom triumph, tying for first with Sweden's Anna Swenn Larsson, who won her first individual World Cup race.

And if there were any doubts that the tie did not represent a complete victory for Holdener, the 29-year-old put those to rest by winning the next slalom in Sestriere to cap off a brilliant start to the season.

Odermatt's star keeps rising as Kilde tries to keep up

The 2022/23 men's World Cup season was billed as a speed battle between Switzerland's Marco Odermatt and Norway's Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, and while it has lived up to all expectations, Odermatt has raised his game to another level.

The defending overall World Cup champion has won five of his 12 races this season and reached the podium 10 times to open up a 329-point lead over Kilde in the chase for the big globe, while also leading the giant slalom and super-G standings.

What separates Odermatt from downhill standings leader Kilde – and the rest of the pack – is his ability to cross the speed-technical divide, which has become increasingly rare on the men's tour.

The 25-year-old has excelled in three disciplines, winning three times in giant slalom and twice in super-G while inching closer to his first downhill victory with three podiums, more than offsetting Kilde winning three downhills and a super-G.

Odermatt continues to improve in the speed disciplines while maintaining his dominance in giant slalom, in which he has won eight of his last 12 World Cup races.

"He's the best," said Austria's Vincent Kriechmayr of Odermatt after the Swiss star won the last race of the year in the Bormio super-G on Thursday.

"You need to be at 100% because this guy is so amazing and when he's pushing 'til the end, it's really tough for us to beat this guy."

Kriechmayr, the 2021 double speed world champion, hit top form around Christmas, winning two downhills and coming second in a super-G in his last four races of 2022 to challenge the two-headed monster on top of the standings.

The Austrian's reemergence has come at an opportune time as two of his long-time rivals, teammate Matthias Mayer and Switzerland's Beat Feuz, are leaving the sport.

Three-time Olympic gold medallist Mayer announced his immediate retirement at the end of December, while 2022 Olympic downhill champion Feuz will finish his career after the Kitzbuehel downhills in January.

Their departures will give the next generation of speed skiers a chance to shine on the World Cup stage, just as Norway's Lucas Braathen is doing in the technical disciplines.

Braathen, 22, won the slalom in Val d'Isère and the first of the two giant slaloms in Alta Badia in December to double his career World Cup win total in the space of a week and announce his arrival as an emerging star on tour.

The challenge for Braathen in the second half of the season will be to consistently challenge for the podium in the hopes of winning the slalom tour title, with Odermatt firmly in control of the giant slalom race.