Sölden Roundup: Shiffrin ramps up while Kilde sits out

One half of Alpine skiing's power couple, Mikaela Shiffrin (USA), is ready to resume her assault on the record books this weekend, while the other half, her fiancé Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (NOR), announced on Wednesday that he will not race this season as he recovers from injury.

Energised Shiffrin aims to peak all season

After missing six weeks at the end of last season due to a knee injury, all-time Alpine skiing World Cup victories leader Mikaela Shiffrin enters the new campaign reenergised and with a new three-discipline focus that she has put into place during her summer training blocks in South America.

"My prep has been great this season, and this is just such a stark contrast to last year, where we fought and struggled with the weather all through the entire summer and the fall," Shiffrin said on Wednesday in a season-opening media conference.

"This year, I’ve had a pretty significant amount of really solid training in slalom, GS, and super-G, and that has been great."

How that will translate into Saturday's first World Cup race of the year, the traditional season-opening giant slalom in Sölden, Austria, is yet to be seen, especially given that Shiffrin missed the final four giant slalom races last year.

"Honestly, I'm skiing well, (but) I don't know what that means for race day, because race day is an entirely different beast," she admitted.

In making the bittersweet decision not to race downhill this season, Shiffrin is aiming for a less-is-more approach that she believes will help her be more effective in other disciplines, especially super-G.

"I'm actually pretty excited because you’ve all heard me talk about juggling training for every discipline, and it's always a struggle," she said.

"It's always a challenge to find the timing to really train slalom and GS, which have always been my priorities, but then super-G and downhill I love, they feed my soul."

After she crashed in a downhill race in Cortina d'Ampezzo in late January, having not trained at all in the discipline before that week since winning a downhill in St Moritz in early December, Shiffrin and her team decided that enough was enough.

"We kind of had to reevaluate after Cortina and say, 'What are we doing here that is potentially setting me up for a little bit of failure?' And one of those things is really trying to juggle every event.

"At some point we ended up sacrificing quality. I feel like these last couple of years my super-G hasn’t been where I wanted it to be."

Despite removing downhill from her schedule, Shiffrin will still be a strong contender for the overall title this season as she again looks to tie Annemarie Moser-Pröll's (AUT) record of six big globes.

And with the 2025 world championships in Saalbach, Austria, also featuring on this season's calendar, the 29-year-old is aiming to bring her A-game all season long.

"Easier said than done, but I am going to try to peak at the start of the season and ride it until the end, which is basically not scientifically possible, but there's ups and downs every season, and world championships is a World Cup mentality," she said.

In the early part of the season, the external noise will focus on Shiffrin needing just three wins to become the first Alpine ski racer to record 100 World Cup victories. But while she has repeatedly said over the years that she doesn't focus on records, the fact that others do helps inspire her — in a roundabout way.

"I feel energised when I feel like other people bring energy to the sport. Bringing energy to the sport is never a bad thing, whether you want to talk about records or statistics or really anything," she said.

"I'm feeling right now energised when people bring up 100 (wins) and I think it's incredible that people are still following along this journey and are excited about it. I would say that's an incredible positive.

"I feel almost less pressure about it (100 wins) because I just think it's exciting, that people want to be excited about it, and so let's go for it."

And even if the prospect of winning 100 World Cup races doesn't provide Shiffrin with extra motivation, that doesn't mean she isn't driven as she enters this season. Unfortunately for her rivals, in fact, it's quite the opposite.

"I think one overarching thought is that I'm just generally inspired by people who do their work very well," Shiffrin said.

"And it can be in anything, literally watching somebody work an Excel sheet well is cool for me. So I can be inspired by pretty much anybody."

And while his Excel skills are unknown, Kilde also pushes Shiffrin to even greater heights.

"He's such a wonderful human to be around. I'm so motivated by him and so inspired by him, and I love him, obviously," she said.

Kilde to sit out the 2024/25 season

As Shiffrin prepares for another potentially record-breaking season, Kilde announced on Wednesday that he will not race in 2024/25.

"I'm not retiring, but I do have some updates for you," the 32-year-old Norwegian star shared on social media, over nine months after he suffered serious injuries in a downhill crash in Wengen.

"It’s been a wild journey so far and we‘re not entirely done yet: one more surgery, one more rehab, and no racing this winter."

In late June, Kilde had a setback when his shoulder became infected and required two more surgeries. Two of his muscles remain unattached and he is scheduled to undergo another surgery, followed by three or four months of rehabilitation.

And while he won't race this season and Shiffrin has stepped back from Kilde's best discipline, they will continue to analyse races together, allowing Shiffrin to "totally geek out" when they discuss downhill.

As for the pair's differing fortunes as the season gets underway, Shiffrin says the couple's ability to support each other when they're going through different experiences will stand them in good stead, on and off the slopes.

"This season I think we're just going to take it in strides, take it all as it comes, because we can do that with each other," she said.