In Olympic sports this weekend, Lindsey Vonn is expected to race in Saturday’s downhill and Sunday’s super-G in Val d’Isere, France, one week after starting her season with first- and second-place finishes in downhills and a fourth in a super-G in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
While Vonn called it a great opening weekend, she also said she can improve. In particular, she said that after her emotional win in her first race last Friday, she lacked some energy for her Saturday and Sunday races.
Other contenders include Emma Aicher of Germany, who won last Saturday’s downhill and then placed third in a slalom on Tuesday, showing impressive range between speed and technical events. Sofia Goggia of Italy, the 2018 Olympic downhill gold medalist and Vonn’s close friend, was fourth, third and third in the St. Moritz races. Alice Robinson of New Zealand won last Sunday’s super-G.
World downhill champion Breezy Johnson was 15th and fourth in the St. Moritz downhills, then posted that she was in the worst pain of her life earlier that week with a back injury sustained eight weeks earlier. Johnson felt better after the St. Moritz races.
Chloe Kim opens her season at the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix at Copper Mountain, Colorado (coverage Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET on CNBC and Peacock), having already made the Olympic team via her No. 1 world ranking at the end of last season. Kim will bid in February to become the first snowboarder to win three consecutive Olympic halfpipe gold medals.
At Copper, her competition includes countrywoman Maddie Mastro, the runner-up to Kim at last January’s X Games, Sena Tomita of Japan, the 2022 Olympic bronze medalist, and Gaon Choi of South Korea, the 2023 X Games champion while Kim was on a break from competition.
The men’s snowboard halfpipe final features six Americans, led by Alessandro Barbieri, who was the top American at the Snow League event in China two weeks ago in fourth place.
In ski halfpipe, the men’s final is star-studded with reigning World Cup season champion Alex Ferreira, who already made the Olympic team, plus two-time Olympic gold medalist David Wise and reigning X Games champion Nick Goepper. Up to four men and four women can make the U.S. Olympic team in each halfpipe event.
In the men’s Alpine skiing World Cup, Swiss Marco Odermatt already won the first of five races on this extended weekend in Italy, taking a downhill in Val Gardena on Thursday and becoming the fifth man to reach 50 career alpine World Cup wins.
Odermatt has won five of his eight races so far this season and could enter the Olympics as the favorite in the downhill, super-G and giant slalom. The only alpine skiers to win three golds at a single Games were Janica Kostelic of Croatia in 2002, Jean-Claude Killy of France in 1968 and Toni Sailer of Austria in 1956.
Val Gardena has been the most successful venue for American men in recent years, though none finished in the top 10 on Thursday. Both of Bryce Bennett’s World Cup wins came in Val Gardena downhills (2021, 2023). Last year, Jared Goldberg made his first World Cup podium in the Val Gardena super-G in his 168th career World Cup start, while Ryan Cochran-Siegle was third in the downhill in 2024.
Summer Britcher leads the U.S. luge team at a home World Cup in Lake, Placid, New York (Friday at 3 p.m. ET and Saturday at 12 p.m. ET, live on Peacock) Last week in Park City, Utah, she became the first U.S. luger to win a singles World Cup race in nearly eight years. Zack DiGregorio and Sean Hollander added a runner-up in men’s doubles in Park City.
Americans could have more home-ice success in Lake Placid. At the last World Cup there in 2023, DiGregorio and Hollander became the first U.S. men’s doubles team to win a World Cup since 2005, while Britcher was third in women’s singles. After Lake Placid, there are two more World Cups in Europe – where Germans and Austrians typically excel -- before the end of Olympic qualifying.
The bobsled and skeleton World Cup continues with the fourth of seven stops this season in Sigulda, Latvia. World monobob champion Kaysha Love ranks second in the overall standings behind Olympic two-woman champion Laura Nolte of Germany. Three-time Olympic gold medalist Kaillie Humphries is fourth overall, while five-time Olympic medalist Elana Meyers Taylor is 10th.
In skeleton, a tight competition has developed among three American women for what is expected to be two Olympic spots: Mystique Ro, the 2025 World individual silver medalist and mixed team gold medalist, and Kelly Curtis, a 2022 Olympian who became a mom in November 2023, are both competing in World Cups.
Katie Uhlaender has been earning Olympic qualifying points in separate lower-level races and could be elevated to World Cups after this weekend. Uhlaender is bidding to tie the U.S. record across all sports with a sixth Winter Olympic appearance. There are three more World Cups after this weekend before the Olympic team is named in mid-January.
In figure skating, Japan will name its Olympic team after its national championships, where the competition for its three women’s and three men’s singles spots is expected to be strong.
At the Grand Prix Final two weeks ago – an event pitting the top six skaters per discipline from the fall Grand Prix Series – four of the women in the field were from Japan. The front-runners for the three Olympic spots are three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto, 2025 World bronze medalist Mone Chiba and Grand Prix Final silver medalist Ami Nakai. For the men, 2022 Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato were second and third at the Grand Prix Final behind Ilia Malinin (Vienna, VA).
An aerials World Cup stop in Secret Garden, China, includes the first mixed team competition of the season. The U.S. is the reigning Olympic and world champion in the event.
All three Americans from the March 2025 World title team are among those competing in Secret Garden: Quinn Dehlinger, who already made the Olympic team, plus Chris Lillis, who was third individually at the first World Cup two weeks ago, and Kaila Kuhn, who is also the reigning individual world champion in women’s aerials.
