Alpine Skiing Worlds Preview
Wednesday February 8, 2023
Who is excited about Alpine Skiing Worlds? @TeamUSATracker
Two weeks of the biannual FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships in Courchevel and Méribel and if you are a ski racing fan every morning with your cup of coffee you get a daily dose of of Steve Schlanger, Steve Porino, the French Alps, and a lot of exciting US skiers like River Radamus and Paula Moltzan looking to win their first World medals. Also Mikaela Shiffrin takes on the world as the world best skiers go to the max limit on difficult course sets to win medals.
Two events down at Alpine Skiing World Championships….11 more events and 33 medals will be still be given out so if you haven’t watched tune in now
Here is tomorrow’s Alpine Skiing Worlds preview today….
Set your alarm clocks for 5:25 AMET tomorrow - racing starts at 5:30 AMET.
Monday and Tuesday’s Recap in under 45 seconds
After 2 events, US ski team athletes just missed the podium in both of the opening races of the possibly soon to be extinct Alpine Combined event.
Monday: Mikaela Shiffrin straddled a gate —3 gates from the finish line on what would have been a gold medal run in the Alpine Combined.
Tuesday: River Radamus finished 4th in Alpine Combined just missing his first ever World Championships medal at the senior level. Radamus' finish was Team USA’s best male finish at Alpine Worlds since 2015 and Team USA ended up with 3 men (Radamus, Erik Arviddson, RCS) in the Top 10 at a World Championships discipline for the first time since 2015 in Beaver Creek.
What’s next: Shiffrin and Radamus will each have another 3 individual races (SG, GS, SL/PSL) to get on the medal stand and Shiffrin is chasing history looking to tie the most all time medals in Alpine Worlds modern history. (Historical note: Tough to compare anything pre WWII as alpine skiing had annual World Championships and from 1937-1939 - Nazi Germany won over 50% of the medals)
WEDNESDAY'S PREVIEW
Race: Women’s Super G
Date: Wednesday February 8th
Time: 530 AM ET
TV/Streaming: Peacock or Skiandsnowboard.live (Subscription needed for both)
Team USA Preview: All four Team USA skiers got a preview of the SG by skiing the Alpine Combined on Monday. Looking at AC results Breezy Johnson and Tricia Mangan DNF’ed on the course and Mikaela Shiffrin was in 6th place after SG on Monday- one of the reasons she was pushing it to the limit during the SL portion of the AC.
Mikaela Shiffrin starts at Bib #9 and some of the favorites of the races should come from Bib#6 to Bib #20. The Top 3 from Monday’s run- Brignone (Bib #13), Gut-Behrami (Bib #11), and Mowinckel (Bib #14) are all medal contenders in SG and will all race after Shiffrin (Bib #9). For all of us rooting for Shiffrin if Shiffrin is in medal contention after her run it will be wait and see type day. Siebenhoffer (Bib #1) or the Italians Curtoni and Bassino (#Bib 7 and #Bib 8) likely will have the lead before Shiffrin steps up at #9 .
Full Details on Wednesday’s Starters
Mikaela Shiffrin
Bib # 9
World Championships/Olympics SG starts: 3
Best Finish: 2019🥇(Are) 2021 🥉(Cortina d’Ampezzo)
World Cup Starts SG: 24 starts
Best Finish (World Cup): 5 wins (most recent: St. Moritz Dec 2022). 2 of 5 World Cup wins have come at St. Moritz
Note: Shiffrin’s 9th in SG at Beijing Olympics was Shiffrin’s best individual finish of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. It was also the only time Shiffrin started SG at Olympics. Shiffrin has finished in the Top 3 of 41.67% of World Cup starts in SG and will likely ski 2 SGs in Norway after the World Championships in her attempt to tie Ingemar Stenmark’s World Cup record of 86.
Breezy Johnson
Bib #26
World Championships/Olympic SG starts: 3
Best Finish: 15 (Cortina d’Ampezzo 2021), 14 (PyeongChang 2018)
World Cup SG starts: 34
Best Finish (World Cup): 9 (Val d’Isere Dec 2021)
Note: Breezy Johnson has not had a Top 20 in SG since coming from knee injury that caused Johnson to miss 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics
Bella Wright
Bib #21
World Championships/Olympics SG starts: 2
Best Finish: 22 (Cortina d’Ampezzo 2021), 21 (Beijing 2022)
World Cup SG starts: 15
Best Finish (World Cup): 19 (St. Anton January 2023)
Note: Wright has 6 DNF in 15 World Cup GS races and DNF out of Tuesday’s DH training run.
Tricia Mangan
Bib #31
World Championships/Olympics SG starts: 0
(note finished 4th at 2018 Jr. Worlds in SG)
World Cup Starts: 17
Best Finish (World Cup): 35 (St. Moritz 2017)
Note: Mangan has 9 DNFs in 17 World Cup starts in SG and also DNF during the SG portion of AC on Monday. Mangan had a career best 12th place at Europa Cup SG race this past weekend.
PREVIOUS RESULTS
Race: Women’s Alpine Combined
Date: Monday February 6th
Run 1 - 5 AM SG, 830 AM SL
Bella Wright (13)
Mikaela Shiffrin (DSQ on 2nd run )
Tricia Mangan (DNF on 1st run)
Breezy Johnson (DNF on 1st run)
Race: Men’s Alpine Combined
Date: Tuesday February 7th
Run 1 - 5AM SG, 830 AM SL
River Radamus (4)
Erik Arvidsson (9)
Ryan Cochran- Siegle (10)
Luke Winters (DNF on 2nd run)
SCHEDULE AND EXPECTED STARTERS NEXT TWO WEEKS
US Ski Team named 21 skiers to the US team for Worlds. 6 were first time participants at World Championships- Ava Sunshine, Tricia Mangan, Erik Arviddson, Sam Morse, Brian McLaughlin, and Kyle Negomir.
Final starters for the race will be named beforehand but here is a list of likely races for the 21 starters on the team.
US SKI TEAM - Expected Races
Mikaela Shiffrin (4)
Races Run: AC
Expected to Start: SG, SL, GS
Tricia Mangan (3)
Races Run: AC
Expected to Start: DH, SG
May Start: PAR, TP
Bella Wright (3)
Races Run: AC
Expected to Start: DH, SG
Breezy Johnson (3)
Races Run: AC
Expected to Start: DH, SG
Paula Moltzan (3)
Expected to Start: SL, GS, PAR
May Start: TP
Kaite Hensien(2)
Expected to Start: SL, GS
May Start: PAR, TP
Nina O’Brien (1)
Expected to Start: GS
May Start: SL, PAR, TP
Ava Sunshine (1)
Expected to Start: SL
May Start: PAR, TP
River Radamus(4)
Races Run: AC
Expected to Start: SG, GS, PAR
May Start: TP
Luke Winters(3)
Races Run: AC
Expected to Start: SL, PAR
May Start: GS, TP
Ryan Cochran-Siegle(3)
Races Run: AC
Expected to Start: DH, SG
Jett Seymour (2)
Expected to Start: SL, PAR
May Start: TP
Benjamin Ritchie(2)
Expected to Start: SL, PAR
May Start: TP
Tommy Ford (1)
Expected to Start: GS
May Start: TP, PAR
Jared Goldberg (1)
Expected to Start: DH
Travis Ganong (2)
Expected to Start: DH, SG
Ganong is retiring after the Season so this will be his last World Championships.
Bryce Bennett(1)
May Start:-DH
Sam Morse(1)
May Start: DH
Erik Arviddson (1)
Races Run: AC
May Start: DH, SG
Brian McLaughlin (1)
Expected to Start: GS
May Start: PAR, TP
Kyle Negomir (1)
Expected to Start SG
Look ahead by day - all times ET all races on Peacock, skiandsnowboard.live
Thursday, Feb. 9
5:30 AM. Men’s SG -
Saturday, Feb. 11
5:00 AM Women’s DH
Sunday, Feb. 12
5:00 AM Men’s DH
Tuesday, Feb. 14
6:15 AM Team Parallel Slalom
11 AM Men’s and Women’s PAR Slalom Qualification
Wednesday, Feb. 14
6:00 AM - Men's and Women's PAR slalom elimination round
Thursday, Feb. 16
4:00 AM - Women's GS (run 1)
7:30 AM. - Women's GS (run 2)
Friday, Feb. 17
4:00 AM - Men’s GS (run 1)
7:30 AM - Men’s GS (run 2)
Saturday, Feb. 18
4:00 a.m. - Women's SL (run 1)
7:30 a.m. - Women's SL (run 2)
Sunday, Feb. 19
4:00 AM - Men's SL (run 1)
7:30 AM - Men’s SL (run 2)