Soelden Women's Alpine Ski World Cup Giant Slalom Preview

Federica Brignone. Soelden 2024 Alpine Ski World Cup Winner. Picture: Ski Paradise

Since the 2000-2001 season, the Alpine Ski World Cup Opening Races have been held in Soelden, Tirol. In 2024, 62 female skiers from around the world participated in this exciting event for ski fans.

After months of anticipation, the Women's Giant Slalom kicks off the new World Cup season, with Lara Gut-Behrami, Mikaela Shiffrin, and Alice Robinson as the favorites to win the 2025 Giant Slalom on the Rettenbach Glacier. Another contender to watch is Sara Hector, who could challenge the top three.

Last season's winner, Federica Brignone, will not start in this weekend's season-opening race. Brignone's 2024-2025 winter season ended abruptly at the Italian National Championships, where she suffered a broken tibia and fibula, as well as a torn cruciate ligament in her left leg.

For the World Giant Slalom Champion and Alpine Ski World Cup winner, even her participation in the Olympic Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo seems increasingly unlikely.

In 2023, Lara Gut-Behrami won the Alpine Ski World Cup Women’s race opener in Sölden, Tirol, Austria.

It was her third victory on the Rettenbach Glacier, equalling Tina Maze's record of three World Cup Giant Slalom wins in Sölden.

Gut-Behrami was on the podium 4 times in Sölden (3-1-0) (2023, 2013, and 2016 - 2021). She achieved a Top 10 finish seven times in the season's first race. It will be the 15th time the 34-year-old Swiss skier competes on the Rettenbach glacier. Last season, she decided not to start in Sölden. She announced her decision not to race in the Alpine Ski World Cup season opener after the slope inspection in the morning.

In the 2023-2024 winter season, Lara Gut-Behrami won the Giant Slalom and Overall Crystal Globes. It was her first Giant Slalom title. She became the first woman representing Switzerland to win the Giant Slalom Crystal Globe since Sonja Nef in 2001-2002.

The Swiss skier from Ticino won the final Giant Slalom of the 2024-2025 winter season in Sun Valley. She competed in eight Giant Slalom World Cup events last season and finished on the podium three times.

Since the 2012-2013 winter season, the 33-year-old Swiss skier has secured at least one race win in every season except for 2018-2019. She has claimed 48 World Cup race victories and is in fifth place on the all-time women's list. The only four women with more World Cup wins than her are some of the biggest legends in Alpine skiing: Mikaela Shiffrin (101), Lindsey Vonn (82), Annemarie Moser-Pröll (62), and Vreni Schneider (55).

Gut-Behrami has 100 Alpine Ski World Cup podiums to her name. She became the fifth woman to reach 100 World Cup podiums after Mikaela Shiffrin (157), Lindsey Vonn (138), Annemarie Proell (114), Renate Goetschl (110), and Vreni Schneider (101).

Gut-Behrami has won 10 career World Cup Giant Slalom races. With her Sun Valley's victory last seson, she became the first woman to do the Alpine skiing 'triple-double' – 10+ World Cup wins in three disciplines (10 GS, 13 DH, and 24 SG). Hermann Maier (24 SG, 15 DH, 14 GS) and Pirmin Zurbriggen (11 combined, 10 DH, 10 SG) are the only men to have done it.

Lara Gut-Behrami faces his last season in the Alpine Ski World Cup.

In 2021, Mikaela Shiffrin won the Alpine Ski World Cup Women’s race opener in Sölden. The 30-year-old American beat Lara Gut-Behrami in an exciting duel, setting the fastest time in the second run to prevail with a margin of 0.14 seconds. In perfect conditions, the American and Swiss skiers were in their own league. After the first run, Gut-Behrami led by merely 2 hundredths and held up well in the second run. In the last section, the two were practically tied before the Swiss lost some time in the flat final section.

Shiffrin was on the podium 6 times in Sölden (2-3-1) (2014 and 2021 - 2015, 2016 and 2019 - 2018). She finished in 5th position in 2017 and 2024, and 6th in 2013 and 2023. In her first appearance in the Rettenbach Glacier racecourse in 2012, she did not qualify for the second run. She snagged her first Giant Slalom victory in 2014 at the season-opener in Soelden.

Last season was the second time, after 2023, Mikaela Shiffrin failed to finish in the top three of the Giant Slalom rankings. She was in the Top-3 in each of the previous seven World Cup seasons, including victories in 2018-2019 and 2022-2023.

22 of her impressive 101 World Cup victories come in Giant Slalom. With seven Giant Slalom victories in the 2022-2023 winter season, Mikaela Shiffrin surpassed Vreni Schneider's record of 20 wins. On March 10, 2023, Shiffrin equaled Schneider's record in Åre, only to break it nine days later in Soldeu. She achieved her last Giant Slalom victory in Lienz in December 2023 and her last podium in January 2024 in Jasna.

In a breathtaking display of talent and determination, Mikaela Shiffrin (Vail, Colorado, March 13, 1995), the winningest alpine skier of all time, reached an incredible milestone last season, claiming 101 wins in 281 races at the Alpine World Ski Cup. Shiffrin claimed her 101 World Cup win in Sun Valley on 27 March 2025.

She finished on the podium 157 times in 281 Alpine Ski World Cup starts. No male or female skier has claimed more podiums in the World Cup than Shiffrin.

In 2018, Shiffrin fulfilled her goal of reaching the top of the podium in the Giant Slalom at the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang.

On October 26, 2019, Alice Robinson won the women's World Cup Giant Slalom event in Sölden at age 17. She became the youngest winner of a World Cup event since Mikaela Shiffrin, who was also 17 years old when she won her first World Cup event (in 2012-2013) in Åre in December 2012.

Last season, Robinson finished in second place, her second podium in Soelden.

Alice Robinson from New Zealand has won four World Cup Giant Slalom titles and has finished on the podium 17 times. Her most recent victory came in January 2025 at Kronplatz, nearly four years after her last Alpine Ski World Cup win in Lenzerheide on March 21, 2021.

In 2024, she finished in second place in the Giant Slalom ranking, 60 points behind Federica Brignone.

Sara Hector claimed 21 of her 24 World Cup podiums in the Giant Slalom, including seven wins in Courchevel, Kranjska Gora, Kronplatz in the 2021-2022 winter season, Jasna in 2024, Killington, and Kranjska Gora last season. In 2022, an inner ligament injury deprived her of becoming the second Swedish winner of the Women's Giant Slalom Crystal Globe, after Anja Pärson (2002-2003, 2003-2004, 2005-2006). Hector won the Olympic Giant Slalom gold in Beijing.

Hector's best result in her eleven participations in Sölden was 4th place in 2023. Last season, she finished in a disappointing 15th place.

In 2024, she finished in third place in the Giant Slalom standings.

Julia Scheib. Soelden 2024 Alpine Ski World Cup. Picture: Ski Paradise

Last season, in Soelden, Austrian skier Julia Scheib secured her maiden and only individual Alpine Ski World Cup podium finish. Before this achievement, her top performances included placing fifth in Saalbach in March 2024 and Lienz in December 2023.

The Austrian skier recorded the second-fastest time in the second run, rising from 14th to third place. This achievement marks the first Giant Slalom podium for Austria since Katharina Liensberger secured third place in Lienz on December 28, 2019.

For eleven years, since the successes of Anna Veith and Marcel Hirscher in 2014, Austria's alpine skiers have been waiting for a home victory in Sölden.

The last Giant Slalom victory for the Austrian women's ski team was achieved by Eva-Maria Brem in Jasna in 2016. In no other discipline has the Austrian team had to wait so long for a win.