The Alpine Worlds: shocks, stunning skiing and non-stop sunshine

The 2023 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships had it all.

For fourteen days the world’s very best surprised, delighted and inspired tens of thousands of sun-drenched fans in the iconic French resorts of Courchevel and Meribel, with countless more worldwide tuning in to the almost-nonstop action.

Before attention returns to World Cup skiing, we take a final look at the record-setting exploits, the heart-warming surprises and the occasional gasp-inducing moments that lit up the 47th Championships.

‘Ups, downs and everything in between’

On arrival in the French Alps, Mikaela Shiffrin was the name on everyone’s lips. And the 27-year-old did not disappoint the headline writers.

It all started in the very first event. Just metres from fulfilling her position as the hottest of favourites in the women’s Alpine combined, Shiffrin straddled a slalom gate. The shocked gasps could be heard all the way back to Colorado.

The American’s disqualification immediately dredged up memories of her painful Beijing 2022 Olympic campaign, and these concerns grew. For the second time in 48 hours Shiffrin appeared to have gold sewn up only to miss out in the final throes of the next event, the super-G.

The pressure valve was then turned up a whole extra notch by the news, revealed just a day before the giant slalom, that Shiffrin’s long-time coach Mike Day had left the Alps.

Somehow Shiffrin managed to shrug all this off and produce what, within this context, must go down as one of even her greatest performances. She snatched GS gold on the line. It was her seventh world title and 13th medal. A 14th followed with silver in the slalom.

“For me, the last two weeks, it’s been ups and downs and everything in between,” said Shiffrin who returns to her pursuit of Ingemar Stenmark’s all-time World Cup wins mark with a world championship record that now reads: 17 starts; seven golds, four silvers and three bronze medals.

New names help European giants

Marco Odermatt may have a long way to go to get near Shiffrin-esque statistics but the 25-year-old is giving it a good go. Since the beginning of 2022 and including his first Olympic Games, Odermatt has lined up for 12 major GS races and won eight of them, including Olympic and now world championship success.

Perhaps even more impressively, the Swiss man chose the slopes of Courchevel on which to claim his first ever senior global downhill win, producing what he described as a “perfect run”.

The double gold medallist led what was a fantastic Championships for Switzerland, and, while two silvers for Wendy Holdener and one for Loic Meillard were no surprise, you would have got long odds on the identity of the nation’s other gold medallist.

The 29-year-old Jasmine Flury has never won a World Cup downhill – in fact on her nine years on tour she has finished on a downhill podium only once – but she is now a speed world champion.

Sofia Goggia was among those Flury beat and the failure of the 30-year-old to repeat the red-hot form she has shown on the World Cup in the past two-and-a-half seasons did put a slight dent into what had been a brilliant start to the women’s competition for Italy.

Federica Brignone started it off for those in blue. Sublime in taking Alpine combined gold, she then climbed off her sickbed to almost deny Shiffrin for a second time in the GS. Not to be outdone, compatriot Marta Bassino defied her relative lack of previous success in the super-G discipline – no World Cup wins to date – to grab Italy their second gold.

It was a good fortnight for the Vikings too. In the three parallel events alone, Norway won four medals, including a notable gold in the women’s discipline for Maria Therese Tviberg. While Henrik Kristoffersen produced one of the second run performances of this, or any championship, to jump up from 16th to 1st in the men’s slalom.

St-Germain top of the shocks

While success for three such powerhouse Alpine nations was not unexpected, Canada’s position on the final medal table certainly was.

Not since 1960 had a Canadian woman won a world slalom title but that did not deter Laurence St-Germain. Nor did her status as a relative unknown in the rarefied air at the very top of world skiing.

The 28-year-old, who had never finished higher than sixth in a World Cup slalom, not only took the final women’s gold on offer, she snatched it from Mikaela Shiffrin, the greatest ever. No wonder St-Germain admitted in the finish area that “winning was not expected at all, like, ever”.

Compatriot James Crawford had almost as big a task. Very few people get the better of Odermatt and Kilde in super-G right now, but the Canadian did.

Home hero and barrier-busting Greek

As well as witnessing all this thrilling action and dipping into the concerts, cabaret and morning yoga sessions that made up the World Ski Festival, the thousands who flocked to the Championships were rewarded with what many of them really wanted.

Courchevel-born and bred, Alexis Pinturault admitted after claiming men’s Alpine combined gold he had been “thinking about the Championships for two years”. A bronze in the super-G followed as the 31-year-old made his dreams come true.

It was all very different for those representing Austria. For the first time in 36 years no skier from the most successful Alpine nation in history won gold.

But the last word goes to a skier who did something no one from his nation has ever done before.

“It is a memory for me, but history for Greece,” said AJ Ginnis after winning men’s slalom silver – the first time any Greek athlete has won a world medal in any winter sport.