Record breakers Odermatt and Shiffrin hungry for more success

Following their record-breaking exploits last season, two of Alpine skiing's biggest stars, Marco Odermatt (SUI) and Mikaela Shiffrin (USA), are as motivated as ever for the 2023/24 campaign that gets underway in the Austrian resort of Sölden this weekend.

The two defending overall champions set the bar so high for themselves last season that an encore performance could be beyond even their own considerable capabilities.

"Hard, nearly impossible to top," said Odermatt of his magical 2022/23 season, in which he set the men's record of 2,042 points while also claiming the giant slalom and super-G globes.

"I guess last year's season was perfect, every race worked out nearly the way I wanted, so it will be nearly impossible to beat, but I will try my best to make it as good as last year."

For Shiffrin, who famously broke the all-time record for most World Cup wins last season, there are still more goals to be reached.

"Motivation-wise, I wouldn't say anything's changed," she said. "I wasn't shooting to reset the record and then that happened last year, and everyone was wondering if I was going to lose motivation, but I was like, 'Why should I lose motivation after accomplishing something that I never truly set out to accomplish?'"

Instead, Shiffrin continues to target winning overall titles, which allows her to reset her motivation every season, especially this season as she can tie Annemarie Moser-Pröll's (AUT) women's record of six big globes, set in 1978/79.

"She's a complete trailblazer in ski racing and I would say that If I am able to match that title, or the six overalls, that would be probably the biggest accomplishment (of my career)," Shiffrin said.

Both stars continue to face the challenge of trying to excel in multiple disciplines, as Odermatt strives for downhill success while Shiffrin hopes to add more speed skiing into her schedule.

"It will get more and more difficult to ski in three disciplines," Odermatt said. "They do more and more races every year, so this is definitely a big challenge to stay healthy and to stay fit for all those races.

"But I think it also helps me to have many races, to take it a little bit easier for each single race and if one discipline doesn't work, you still have the others."

Shiffrin said this season's less condensed schedule, without a world championships or Olympic Games, will allow her to compete in slightly more World Cup super-G races.

"I'd like to say there's more speed in my future but I did look at the schedule this year and there's not a lot more," she said. "There's not a lot more racing that I can physically do, but there's a little bit more."

To prepare for this campaign, Odermatt described his pre-season training as "nothing special", as he relied on much the same strategy that has taken him to the last two overall globes.

"For sure there are always some small adaptions but all in all I had more or less a similar summer and training preparation as the years before," he said.

While Shiffrin had her off-season training in Chile disrupted by food poisoning and excessive snow, she also had some productive days in downhill, giant slalom and slalom.

And if the most successful World Cup Alpine ski racer of all time needed any more reminding about the sporting royalty she's now being compared with, she found out after becoming an ambassador for youth sports at Camp Arrow Wood in the United States during the off-season.

"I got to do a little trip and they named one of the buildings after me right next to the one they named after Michael Jordan, so I was like, 'Wow, this is kind of cool.'"