The best skiers in the world end the year on Thursday and Friday with two races on the demanding Bormio slope in Italy where Frenchman Alexis Pinturault is expected for the first descent of his new life.
After a start to the World Cup season disrupted by repeated cancellations linked to bad weather conditions, 2023 will end on the prestigious Stelvio. Who will start the new year at the top of the general classification? After two seasons of crushing the competition, the Swiss ski genius Marco Odermatt must count this winter with the Austrian Marco Schwarz, who is lining up in all the races on the program to compete for the big globe.
Last week in Madonna di Campiglio, Schwarz won the night slalom and the 100 points that go with it, allowing him to arrive in Bormio with a small lead of eight points over his Swiss rival. “Marco Schwarz is consistent in several disciplines and that is what gives him his strength at the moment,” Pinturault analyzed in Val d’Isère at the beginning of December. “On the other hand, Marco Odermatt remains the reference as a giant and behind that, you have to hang on.”
With a descent on Thursday and a super-G on Friday on the program in Bormio, “the Marco duel” should rather turn in favor of Odermatt, who almost always collects more points than Schwarz in these disciplines.
But the Austrian showed this season that he was also capable of making Top 10s in speed, with a 9th place on the descent of Val Gardenna in mid-December, only three hundredths… from Odermatt, champion of the world of the specialty who has never won a downhill in the World Cup.
In Bormio in 2021, the Swiss finished second in the downhill. Last year, he finished just off the podium before winning the super-G the next day. For his part, Schwarz has not worn a bib in Bormio since 2012, at the time for a national youth race.
Another attraction on Thursday in the Italian resort, Pinturault will line up for its first descent of the winter. At 32, the combined world champion is embarking on a new project this season: competing in the majority of descents with the aim, ultimately, of establishing himself in this discipline which offers the most famous “classics” on the circuit. .
If he has already competed in nine World Cup descents – mainly to get his bearings in super-G -, his “real” debut in the specialty had to be postponed this season.
While he had skipped the first descents in Zermatt-Cervinia, which were ultimately canceled, he was also unable to take part in those of Beaver Creek in the United States, the races there also being victims the weather. Ten days ago, he also preferred to give up the descents of Val Gardena in Italy because he was not able to train sufficiently on a track he did not know.
The Women’s Alpine Skiing World Cup moves to Lienz in Austria, with a giant scheduled for Thursday and a slalom on Friday.
With almost 150 points ahead of her runner-up Federica Brignone, the five-time winner of the big globe Mikaela Shiffrin (700 points) should, barring a disaster scenario, start 2024 in a leading position.
The American, 91 World Cup successes, has already won three victories (seven podiums) since the start of winter, two in slalom and one in downhill.
But she’s not unbeatable. In slalom, Shiffrin has to deal with Petra Vlhova in great form, who has already beaten her twice on the stakes this winter. And in giant, she remains stuck in third place in the specialty ranking, behind the Swiss Lara Gut-Berhami and the Italian Federica Brignone, who each have two successes in giant this season.
