Women's in-form icons and blossoming youngsters headline World Championships for the ages
Feb 03, 2025·Alpine Skiing
Every FIS Alpine World Ski Championships is brim full of big-name skiers and captivating storylines, but the 2025 edition in Saalbach, Austria 4-16 February seems particularly blessed.
Check out what is to come over the next 13 days of action on the women’s side: first up, the most successful World Cup skier ever will attempt to become the most decorated World Championship skier in history. Mikaela Shiffrin (USA/Atomic) needs just two more medals to overtake Christl Cranz (GER) and add that accolade to her bulging trophy cabinet.
Out to stop her and grab yet more glory for themselves is a phalanx of fellow all-time greats, including Federica Brignone (ITA/Rossignol), Sofia Goggia (ITA/Atomic) and Lara Gut-Behrami (SUI/Head).
Then consider the young guns who have chosen this season to stick their names up in lights. Zrinka Ljutic (CRO/Atomic) and Camille Rast (SUI/Head) both started the season having never won on the World Cup tour, but now they line up in Saalbach as genuine contenders for gold.
As if all that is not enough, the legendary Lindsey Vonn (USA/Head) is back and aiming to break her own record as the oldest female world championship medallist.
Do not miss a moment, it is going to be a feast.
‘It’s the podium or nothing’
Brignone heads the ones-to-watch list. The 34-year-old is in the form of her life and remarkably is a strong medal threat in three of the four individual disciplines.
Long a star Giant Slalom and Super G performer, the Italian has chosen her 16th season on tour to become a serious Downhill contender. Winner last time out in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, following up on her maiden triumph in St. Anton, Brignone heads the Downhill season standings, as she does in the race for the Overall title. With two GS wins and a Super G triumph too, Brignone is eying up a major haul.
She knows what it takes to win World Championship gold too.
“Every discipline, it’s just one shot. It’s kind of stressful but also you get more adrenaline. You say now or never,” Brignone, the 2023 Alpine Combined world champion, explained. “You have to be here; you have to perform. There’s more media. It’s totally different. It’s the podium or nothing.”
The expectation on her will certainly be considerable, something Brignone, like every skier, is always attempting to handle.
Legends still leading the way
There is no doubt there will be a strong Italian focus on the opening women’s speed races (Super G 6 February, Downhill 8 February). If Brignone does not manage to triumph in either race, compatriot 2018 Olympic Downhill and four-time World Cup Downhill champion Sofia Goggia (Atomic) may well replicate her teammate Marta Bassino's Super G victory in Meribel two years ago.
A winner in both speed disciplines this season, the 32-year-old Goggia is primed to claim her first world championship title. Bassino (Salomon), though, is not in good form but at 28 is a solid racer with a record peppered with victories.
Gut-Behrami has been topping podiums for almost as long as her Italian rivals and, after a tricky start to the season, she is quietly edging back towards top form. And few know how to perform on the biggest stages better than the Swiss skier, who has 11 world and Olympic medals to her name.
Twice a world champion (in the Super G and GS in 2021) and the reigning Olympic Super G gold medallist, Gut-Behrami will, like Brignone, fancy her chances across the disciplines.
In the absence of the injured defending Downhill champion Jasmine Flury (SUI/Kaestle), Corinne Suter (SUI/Head) joins Gut-Behrami in leading the Swiss challenge. Suter already has a full set of Downhill medals, having won gold in 2021, silver in 2019 and bronze in 2023.
Hütter heads home hopes
Conny Hütter (AUT/Head) would dearly love to join her Swiss rival as a heavily decorated world championship skier. The hometown hero is certainly in form to add to the Super G bronze she won in 2023.
Not only is she the reigning World Cup Downhill champion – having grabbed that trophy in fine style in Saalbach at the end of last season – she has also already won twice this season. All Austrian eyes will be on the 32-year-old as she attempts to continue her love affair with the famous resort.
Elsewhere, Ester Ledecka (CZE/Kaestle) will go in what she expects to be the first of two FIS World Championships this spring. The dual ski and snowboard Olympic champion is yet to win a world championship medal on her skis but has a Downhill World Cup podium to her name this season.
Lauren Macuga (USA/Rossignol) is another to have shone on the speed skis. The 22-year-old grabbed her first ever World Cup win in the Super G in St. Anton at the beginning of the year.
Vonn takes centre stage
However, as incredible as this sentence would have seemed just a few months ago, Lindsey Vonn (USA/Head) may just steal the Stars and Stripes limelight from Macuga.
The 40-year-old is primed and ready for her first championships since becoming the oldest female skier to ever win a world medal when she took Downhill bronze back in 2019. The American retired straight after that remarkable triumph but after finishing fourth in the St. Anton Super G and sixth in the Downhill Vonn is a genuine contender.
If she were to win a medal, 16 years after she did the speed double in Val d’Isere, it would surely go down as one of the all-time great sporting comebacks.
Shiffrin aiming for medal No.15
Teammate Shiffrin has her own comeback to navigate. After suffering a deep puncture wound while going for World Cup win No.100 in Killington in November, Shiffrin spent 60 days on the sidelines.
A 10th place finish on her return to Slalom action last week gave her plenty to work on as she attempts to continue a record that reads 14 medals in 17 world championship starts. If anyone can do it, Shiffrin surely can.
The 29-year-old, who had won nine of her previous 11 World Cup Slalom races before that 10th place, is chasing a record fifth World Championship Slalom gold.
Shiffrin v Ljutic
Shiffrin versus Ljutic in the Slalom could well be the highlight of the Championships, as well as the start of a new rivalry to dominate the coming years.
The 21-year-old Croatian started the season with plenty of podiums but questions to answer about turning those into victories. That question-mark has well and truly disappeared. Ljutic has won three of the past four World Cup Slaloms and, perhaps even more tellingly, all three of those victories have come when she’s held the first run lead.
Ljutic also can claim some world championship pedigree, having won the 2022 Junior Slalom gold.
Fellow former Junior Slalom gold medallist Rast (2017) is also a multiple first-time World Cup winner this season and will, alongside six-time world championship medallist Wendy Holdener (SUI/Head), lead a strong Swiss tech challenge. The 2023 bronze medallist Lena Duerr (GER/Head) will be gunning for her first global title.
‘I wish I remembered it a bit more’
Many skiers will be hoping to draw on the example of Laurence St-Germain (CAN/Rossignol) who defied a sparse World Cup record to grab world championship Slalom gold two years ago.
“It makes me so proud I accomplished this,” St-Germain, who had no previous top-five World Cup finishes in that event to her name, said, before adding with a smile, “I wish I remembered it a bit more because I was so much in the adrenaline that it’s still blurry in my mind.
“It was so many emotions, so much excitement. Honestly, it made me respect so much the athletes that win all the time, that are on the podium all the time and have to deal with that after every race and around the race.”
The fact she got the better of silver medallist Shiffrin makes the memories all the sweeter.
Austria expects
Katharina Liensberger (AUT/Rossignol) will never forget the 2021 World Championships, having claimed Slalom and Parallel Slalom gold. But the 27-year-old would no doubt exchange all those memories for a triumph on home snow.
She has been in good form this season, having claimed two podiums and two fourth-place finishes. Much will be expected of her.
So too, Sara Hector (SWE/Head). No Swede has won a women’s world championship gold since Anja Parson in 2007 but Hector is looking ready, and remarkably she is primed to challenge in two disciplines. The reigning Olympic gold medallist has long been imperious in GS – with two wins this season attesting to that – but now she is a Slalom contender too, having finished second and third in her past two World Cup races.
Alice Robinson (NZL/Salomon) is used to battling Hector on the GS slopes and will start as the hottest skier in the discipline. Just 23, Robinson won the most recent World Cup GS, and has featured on every GS podium this season bar one. Should she add gold in Saalbach to that haul, she will make history as the first New Zealand woman ever to climb to the top step of a world championship podium.
It is going to be quite a fortnight.
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