Over the next two weeks, the World Alpine Skiing Championships will feature the two winningest women in World Cup history and a man who may be en route to joining the all-time greats, if he isn’t already part of the club.
Competition starts Tuesday with a mixed-gender team parallel event (9:15 a.m. ET, Peacock).
Then the speed races of downhill and super-G run from Thursday through Sunday in Saalbach, Austria. That’s when Lindsey Vonn races at worlds for the first time since 2019, when she earned downhill bronze at age 34 (oldest individual female medalist in history) in what she thought was the last race of her career.
Vonn retired then due to the toll ski racing had taken on her body over an 18-year career filled with crashes and injuries — specifically the pain in her right knee, which had been surgically repaired multiple times.
Vonn had additional knee operations since retiring, including partial right knee replacement surgery this past April that proved a game-changer.
“All the things that had been bothering me for so many years were suddenly gone,” she said in December. “I thought, OK, well, if I feel this good playing tennis and doing all the things I love, what about skiing?”
She tested out the knee, which is now partially titanium, on the slopes. It went well, and the comeback was on with a goal to make a fifth Olympic team and retire for good after the 2026 Milan Cortina Games.
“To be able to ski without pain, it’s a completely new world for me,” she said before her first World Cup race back Dec. 21. “I haven’t felt this good in 15 years.”
Vonn’s best finishes in seven World Cup starts this winter are fourth (super-G) and sixth (downhill), putting her on an early track to make the Olympic team next winter. At 40, she is the oldest woman on record (by years) to finish in the top 30 of a World Cup race.
“Some amazing races and some mistakes were made but overall I’m extremely happy with my skiing,” she posted after her most recent World Cup. “This journey is taking shape fast than I expected but I still need to be patient. One step at a time!”
Vonn and the speed racers give way in the second week to the technical skiers in giant slalom and slalom. Mikaela Shiffrin owns the most women’s World Cup wins in both disciplines.
Shiffrin is working her way back from a Nov. 30 giant slalom race crash that resulted in torn oblique muscles. She returned to the World Cup last Thursday — though not yet at 100% — and finished 10th in a slalom.
“The next 10 days will be a bit challenging to fit everything in (training) with giant slalom skiing and with slalom skiing to get the variety of conditions that I really need to be on the top level,” she said after that race. “I might not get there before world championships, but for sure I believe I can get there before the end of the season, so that’s the goal.”
Shiffrin is already the most successful skier in modern world championships history — seven gold medals (tied for the most since World War II) and 14 total medals (most since World War II outright) in 17 individual race starts dating to 2013.
Swiss Marco Odermatt could star in both weeks of worlds. Last year, he topped the men’s World Cup season standings in the downhill, super-G and giant slalom (and overall, naturally) and is doing so again this season.
The 27-year-old won the 2022 Olympic giant slalom, captured the downhill and giant slalom at the last worlds in 2023 and has shot commercials with Roger Federer. He can become the fourth man to own world titles in the downhill, super-G and giant slalom.