An Alpine skiing season that Mikaela Shiffrin deemed wild, and one that Marco Odermatt has flat-out dominated, ends at the World Cup Finals, live on Peacock the next two weekends.
Shiffrin’s season ends Saturday in the slalom. She announced Thursday that she will not race Sunday’s giant slalom due to a lack of training in the event during her continued recovery from a Jan. 26 downhill race crash.
She previously announced that she will not race the following weekend’s downhill and super-G.
This past Sunday, she raced for the first time in six weeks, winning a slalom for a record-extending 96th Alpine World Cup victory. She also clinched an eighth slalom season title, tying the record for season titles in any discipline.
Shiffrin moved into solo third on the all-time World Cup wins list across all Winter Olympic sports, passing retired Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen (whose 95 wins included one in cross-country skiing). The only athletes with more, both also retired legends: German speed skater Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann (98 wins) and Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjørgen (114).
Regardless of her World Cup Finals result, Shiffrin’s ability to return from her injuries and immediately win made it a successful ending to the campaign.
“This season has just been a wild one, full of ups and downs, I think for everybody,” she told Austrian broadcaster ORF on Sunday. “My own personal journey, there’s definitely been some frustrating moments these past weeks, so just trying to get back and hoping that I could get back.”
World Cup Finals Live Broadcast Schedule
| Date | Event | Platform | Time (ET) |
| Sat., March 16 | Men’s GS (Run 1) | Peacock | 4 a.m. |
| Women’s SL (Run 1) | Peacock | 5:30 a.m. | |
| Men’s GS (Run 2) | Peacock | 7 a.m. | |
| Women’s SL (Run 2) | Peacock | 8:30 a.m. | |
| Stifel Snow Show | CNBC | 2:30 p.m. | |
| Sun., March 17 | Women’s GS (Run 1) | Peacock | 4 a.m. |
| Men’s SL (Run 1) | Peacock | 5:30 a.m. | |
| Women’s GS (Run 2) | Peacock | 7 a.m. | |
| Men’s SL (Run 2) | Peacock | 8:30 a.m. | |
| Fri., March 22 | Women’s SG | Peacock | 5 a.m. |
| Men’s SG | Peacock | 6:30 a.m. | |
| Sat., March 23 | Women’s DH | Peacock | 6:15 a.m. |
| Stifel Snow Show | CNBC | 12:30 p.m. | |
| Sun., March 24 | Men’s DH | Peacock | 6:15 a.m. |
Also this weekend, Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami can mathematically clinch her second World Cup overall title, the biggest annual prize in ski racing the crowns the world’s best all-around Alpine skier.
Gut-Behrami, whose other overall title came in 2016, passed Shiffrin in this season’s standings in February during the American’s injury absence.
At 32, Gut-Behrami would shatter the record of oldest woman to win the overall. That’s currently held by fellow Swiss Vreni Schneider, who won at age 30 in 1995.
On the men’s side, Odermatt clinched the overall historically early — on Feb. 24 with 10 races left in the season.
The men’s World Cup Finals in Saalbach begin with a GS on Saturday, where plenty of history is at stake for Odermatt.
The 26-year-old Swiss has 13 wins already this season, tying the men’s single-season record. So a victory in any of his three World Cup Finals races will give him the record outright.
A win on Saturday specifically would extend his streak to 13 consecutive GS victories dating to last season. The record run for one discipline is 14, set by Swede Ingemar Stenmark in the GS from 1978-80.
Odermatt can also become the first skier to win every race in one primary discipline in one season since Schneider won all seven slaloms in 1988-89.
Then on the final weekend March 22-24, with a downhill and super-G, Odermatt can finish off one of the most dominant seasons in history.
He currently has 1,902 points from his results this season — 140 points shy of his men’s World Cup single-season record from last year. For each race, the winner receives 100 points on a descending scale through one point for 30th place. Only the top 15 are scored at World Cup Finals.
Odermatt currently leads the overall standings by 1,056 points. The men’s single-season record margin — 743 from Hermann Maier in 2000-01 — is set to be shattered.
The question is how close Odermatt can get to the single-season record margin for men or women set by Slovenian Tina Maze in 2012-13: 1,313 points.
