The Women’s Alpine Ski World Cup Tour moves over to a speed series this upcoming weekend in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Austria.
In January 2024, Zauchensee will be the venue for three World Cup races: On January 12th, the replacement Super-G for St. Moritz will take place on the Gamskogel, on January 13th, a Downhill, and on January 14th, the classic Zauchensee Super-G.
January 12th Super-G / Women (replaces St. Moritz) 10:45 CET
January 13th Downhill / Women 10:45 CET
January 14th Super-G / Women 11:00 CET
For over 40 years, Zauchensee has hosted FIS Alpine Ski World Cup races. Since 1990, the races in Zauchensee have been held on the Kälberloch racecourse. In 2002, the Downhill track was extended for the World Cup Finals, and the Men's start was moved up to the Gamskogel. Since 2007, women have also started from the top in the Downhill races. This made the World Cup course in Zauchensee one of the most spectacular and technically demanding Women's Downhill runs in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
Racecourse facts:
Start Elevation: 2176 m / 1970 (Super-G)
Finish Elevation: 1380 m
Vertical Drop: 796 m / 590 (Super-G)
Distance: 3005 m / 2150 m (Super-G)
Max. slope: 87 % at the Hundschopf jump
Zauchensee is a ski resort in the Austrian municipality of Altenmarkt im Pongau, in the state of Salzburg. Zauchensee.
The Zauchensee-Flachauwinkl connection to Snow Space Salzburg creates a skiing paradise: 12 peaks, 5 valleys, 70 ultra-modern cable cars, and 210 kilometers of pistes in the heart of Ski amadé, Austria’s greatest skiing domain. Since the winter season 2020-2021, the Panorama Link Gondola links the 3 ski resorts Flachau, Wagrain, and St. Johann - Alpendorf of Snow Space Salzburg, Shuttleberg Flachauwinkl-Kleinarl, and Zauchensee.
Downhill Preview
The last five Women's World Cup Downhill races were won by five different women: Sofia Goggia, Kajsa Vickhoff Lie, Ilka Å tuhec, Mikaela Shiffrin, and Jasmine Flury.
Sofia Goggia claimed the 2022-2023 Downhill Crystal Globe. She also won the discipline Globe in 2017-2018, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022. She is the first woman to win the Downhill Globe in three successive seasons since Lindsey Vonn won six in a row between 2007-2008 and 2012-2013. Goggia joins the five women group to have won the Donhill Globe at least four times: Lindsey Vonn (8), Annemarie Moser-Pröll (7), Renate Götschl (5), Michela Figini (4) and Katja Seizinger (4).
The 30-year-old Italian speed Queen won five of the nine women's Downhill World Cup races last season (Lake Louise I and II, St. Moritz, Cortina d'Ampezzo, and Crans Montana). She was the first woman to win at least five in a single season since Lindsey Vonn achieved that in 2015-2016. Goggia was on the podium eight times, five wins and three second places. The only time she did not finish in the Top-3 was in the second Downhill held in Cortina d'Ampezzo where she did not finish the race (DNF).
Since the start of last season, Goggia finished on the podium in nine of the 11 women's World Cup Downhill events (five victories and four second places).
With 17 wins in the Downhill, Sofia Goggia is the active skier with the most victories in the Downhill in the Alpine Ski World Cup. In Women's World Cup Downhill events, only Lindsey Vonn (43), Annemarie Moser-Pröll (36), Renate Götschl (24), and Michela Figini (17) have celebrated as many victories as Goggia.
Sofia Goggia finished in second place in the first Downhill of the season in St. Moritz and fourth in Val d'Isère.
Federica Brignone finished in third place in St. Moritz. The 33-year-old Italian Skier has finished on the Downhill podium in the alpine Ski World Cup six times but she never won a race in this discipline.
Brignone celebrated her 23rd World Cup victory in Tremblant, Canada. She finished in the podium 60 times, 23 wins, in the World Cup.
Slovenian Ilka Stuhec won the last Downhill of the season at the Finals in Soldeu, her fourth podium of the season, and finished in second place in the Downhill standings. Stuhec confirmed in Andorra her come back at the very top of women’s Alpine Downhill skiing. The 33-year-old and double Downhill World Champion at St. Moritz 2017 and Are 2019, become the oldest winner in a women's World Cup Downhill race since Lindsey Vonn won in Åre on 14 March 2018 at age 33.
Ilka Å tuhec (Cortina d'Ampezzo, and Soldeu) and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie (Kvitfjell) are the only non-Italian women to win a Downhill event last season.
Kajsa Vickhof Lie became the first Norwegian woman to win a Downhill Alpine Ski World Cup when she won in Kvitfjell on 4 March. She had finished second in Cortina d'Ampezzo on 21 January.
Vickhof Lie can join the group of four other Norwegian women who have won multiple World Cup events: Andrine Flemmen (3), Ragnhild Mowinckel (3), Trine Rognmo-Bakke (2) and Nina Haver-Løseth (2).
Corinne Suter finished in third place in the Downhill standings. The Swiss Downhill Olympic Champion has won 5 races in the Alpine Ski World Cup (3 in Downhill, 2 n Super-G) and finished in the podium 24 times.
Suter took bronze in the Women's Downhill at the 47th Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel-Méribel.
In the 2019-2020 season the 29-year-old skier won the Downhill and the Super-G Crystal Globes. In the next two seasons she finished in second place (2020-2021 and 2021-2022) in the Downhill standings.
Downhill Gold medalist in Méribel Jasmine Flury won the second Downhill of the season in Val d'Isère.
It was her second victory in the Alpine Ski World Cup, and the first one in Downhill, following a victory in the Super-G in St. Moritz in December 2017. Flury's only podium in the Downhill was a second place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in January 2022.
Jasmine Flury won the women's downhill world title in Méribel on February 11.
Lara Gut-Behrami has been participating in the Alpine Skiing World Cup for 16 years and has won 12 women's World Cup Downhills, the last one in Zauchensee in January 2022, for a total of 20 podiums in the discipline. She achieved in Soldeu at the Finals her only podium finish in the Downhill last season. In October Gut-Behrami won the Alpine Ski World Cup Opener in Sölden. She became the third woman to claim at least one World Cup win in 13 different seasons, after Renate Götschl (14) and Lindsey Vonn (13).
Austria's women has missed the podium in St. Moritz with Cornelia Hütter (+0.28), who was second in the Super-G the day before, and Mirjam Puchner (+0.39) taking fourth and fifth place.
Hütter or Puchner can become the first woman representing Austria to win a World Cup Downhill event since Nicole Schmidhofer in Lake Louise on 7 December 2019.
Hütter has won one World Cup Downhill race: in Lake Louise on December 1, 2017. She finished fourth and third respectively in the two women's World Cup Downhill events this season.
Puchner was on the podium five times in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
Super-G Preview
Italy recorded podium finishes in three out of four women's World Cup speed events this season, including Super-G victories by Sofia Goggia (St. Moritz) and Federica Brignone (Val d'Isère).
Federica Brignone wins the second Super-G of the season held in the Oreiller-Killy course at La Daille in Val d'Isère. The 33-year-old set the best time in a challenging course seting to took the victory with a lead of 0.44 seconds over Kajsa Vickhoff Lie. Sofia Goggia rounded out the podium 0.59 seconds behind Brignone.
Last season, Federica Brignone finished in second place in the discipline standings.
Brignone won both women's Giant Slalom events in Tremblant. She can become the second Italian woman to win three consecutive World Cup events, after Sofia Goggia won three (two Downhills and a Super-G) in Lake Louise in December 3-5, 2021.
Brignone (9) is in seventh place on the list of women's Super-G World Cup winners. Michaela Dorfmeister is sixth with 10 wins.
Brignone is joint-second alongside Gustav Thöni (both 24) for most World Cup wins by an Italian alpine skier, behind only Alberto Tomba (50). Sofia Goggia has won 23.
Brignone won the last Women's World Cup Super-G held in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee. She finished ahead of Corinne Suter and Ariane Rädler on January 16, 2022.
Sofia Goggia won the first Super-G of the season in St. Moritz. Goggia bested Austrian Cornelia Hütter by +0.95 seconds. Laura Gut-Behrami complete the podium (+1.02).
It was her first Super-G victory in almost two years. The last time she was on the top of the podium was in Val d'Isère on December 19, 2021. The 31-year-old speed specialist celebrated her 23rd World Cup victory, her sixth in Super-G.
The last woman to win the first two Super-G events of a World Cup season was Mikaela Shiffrin in 2018-2019 (Lake Louise and St. Moritz).
On December 8 in St. Moritz, Cornelia Hütter finished second in the first Super-G race of the 2023-2024 Alpine Ski World Cup season. Hütter recorded her first-ever podium finish in a World Cup event 10 years ago in Val d'Isère, a third place in the Downhill on December 21, 2013.
Austrian women have not celebrated a World Cup win since Hütter and Nina Ortlieb triumphed in the Kvitfjell Super-G events on 3 and 5 March 2023 respectively.
Lara Gut-Behrami won the last Super-G of the season at the Finals in Soldeu and grabs the Crystal Globe. It was the fourth time that the 32-year-old Swiss has won the Super-G Crystal Globe after winning the title of the speed discipline in 2013-2014, 2015-2016 and 2020-2021. Only Katja Seizinger and Lindsey Vonn, five times each, have won the Super-G Crystal Globe more times.
The 2022 Olympic champion has won 19 Super-G World races, second-most behind Lindsey Vonn (28). Last season she was on the Super-G podium four times (St. Anton I and II, Kvitfjell, and Soldeu). She also won the second Super-G race held in St. Anton on January 15.
Gut-Behrami also won Gold in this discipline at both the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2021 World Championships in Cortina.
Lara Gut-Behrami is one win away from becoming the seventh woman to record at least 40 wins in World Cup events, and the second representing Switzerland, after Vreni Schneider (55).
Gut-Behrami finished in third place in the first Super-G of the season in St. Moritz.
25-year-old Kajsa Vickhoff Lie could become the fourth woman representing Norway to achieve a World Cup victory in the Super-G, after Merete Fjeldavlie (1992), Ingeborg Helen Marken (1996) and Ragnhild Mowinckel (2022 and 2023).
Lie's podium in Val d'Isère was her 4th Alpine Ski World Cup podium, her second one in the Super-G.
Ragnhild Mowinckel rounded out the podium in the last race of the season in Soldeu, her 13th World Cup podium, in third place +0.47 seconds behind the Swiss, and finished in third place in the discipline standings. In a neat image of symmetry, Soldeu's Gut-Behrami-Brignone-Mowinckel race podium matched the Crystal Globe podium.
Two of her three World Cup wins were in Super-G: Courchevel-Meribel in March 17, 2022, and Cortina d'Ampezzo in January 22, 2023.
Marta Bassino is the current Super-G world champion. On February 8, 2023, in Courchevel-Méribel, she won her second World Champion title (she won gold at the Parallel in Cortina 2021). Bassino finished ahead of Mikaela Shiffrin (silver), Cornelia Hütter and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie (shared bronze medal).
Bassino has yet to win a Super-G event at the World Cup. She finished on the podium four times, two second places (Bansko 2020, and St. Anton 2021), and two third places (St. Anton 2023, and Cortina d'Ampezzo 2023).