Combined is an event in alpine ski racing. The event format has changed within the last 30 years. A traditional combined competition is a two-day event consisting of one run of downhill and two runs of slalom; each discipline takes place on a separate day. The winner is the skier with the fastest aggregate time. Until the 1990s, a complicated point system was used to determine placings in the combined event. Since then, a modified version, called either a "super combined" or an "Alpine combined", has been run as an aggregate time event consisting of two runs: first, a one-run speed event and then only one run of slalom, with both portions held on the same day.
The FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1987 were held in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, from 27 January to 8 February 1987.
Mikaela Pauline Shiffrin is an American World Cup alpine skier who has the most World Cup wins of any alpine skier in history and is considered one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time. She is a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist. She is a five-time Overall World Cup champion, a four-time world champion in slalom and a seven-time winner of the World Cup discipline title in that event. Shiffrin is the youngest slalom champion in Olympic alpine skiing history, at 18 years and 345 days.
Petra Vlhová is a Slovak World Cup alpine ski racer who specialises in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom. Vlhová won the World Cup overall title in 2021 and the gold medal in the 2022 Winter Olympics in the slalom event, becoming the first Slovak skier to achieve these feats.
The International Ski Federation (FIS) Alpine Ski World Cup, the premier circuit for alpine skiing competition, began in January 1967, and the 2019–20 season marked the 54th consecutive year for the FIS World Cup. As it had every year since 2006, the season began in Sölden, Austria in October. The season was supposed to end with the World Cup finals in March, which were to be held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy for the first time since they began in 1993, but the finals were cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy.
Rahel Kopp is a Swiss World Cup alpine ski racer, and specializes in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom. She made her World Cup debut at age 19 in October 2013, and her best finish is a fourth place in a combined event in February 2019.
The women's downhill in the 2021 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of seven events. The original schedule had called for eight downhills, but the World Cup finals race was canceled.
The women's downhill in the 2020 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved 8 events, with only one canceled.
The women's giant slalom in the 2020 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved 6 events. The season had been scheduled for nine events, but all of the last three giant slaloms were canceled.
The Women's Combined in the 2020 Alpine Skiing World Cup involved two events, although four had been scheduled. A combined at Val d'Isère, France on 22 December 2019 was cancelled due to heavy snowfall, which forced the downhill scheduled for the day before to be shifted back a day, and a combined at La Thuile, Italy on 1 March was also cancelled due to heavy snowfall the challenge in rescheduling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The women's overall in the 2020 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved 30 events in 6 disciplines: downhill (DH), Super-G (SG), giant slalom (GS), slalom (SL), Alpine combined (AC), and parallel (PAR). This was the first year that parallel was treated as a separate discipline; prior to the 2019–20 season, it had been a sub-element of the slalom discipline. The season had originally been scheduled to have 41 races, but 11 races that had originally been scheduled were canceled during the season, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as discussed below.
The women's downhill in the 2022 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of nine events including the finals. Defending champion Sofia Goggia of Italy, who won four of the five downhills in which she competed in 2020-21, continued her domination in 2021-22 by again winning four of the first five downhills. Goggia took a commanding lead in the discipline after American Breezy Johnson, who finished second in each of the first three downhills, missed the rest of the season with a knee injury. Goggia then suffered her own knee injury, including a broken bone and ligament tears, while training for the last downhill prior to the 2022 Winter Olympics, but she was able to continue competing within a month and, after all but the final race of the season, had such a commanding lead that only one other competitor even had a theoretical possibility of overtaking her. At the finals, Suter failed to score, and Goggia won her second consecutive discipline championship.
The women's super-G in the 2022 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of nine events including the final. Although no Italian woman had ever won the super-G championship, the battle in 2021-22 was between three of them: speed specialists Sofia Goggia and Elena Curtoni plus 2020 overall champion Federica Brignone. Through the first six races, Curtoni had won one, and each of the others had won two. However, Goggia was injured in a crash in the sixth race, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, and missed the next set of speed races as well as the super-G in the 2022 Winter Olympics. The seventh race, which was held days before the Winter Olympics, was skipped by many of the other top competitors, but was won by Brignone, enabling her to open a sizable lead in the discipline, and Brignone was able to clinch the season championship in the next Super-G when neither Curtoni nor Goggia scored points.
The women's downhill in the 2023 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of nine events, including the final. The original schedule called for eleven events, but the first two races of the season scheduled for 5 and 6 November 2022 in Zermatt/Cervinia, were canceled due to adverse weather conditions; the FIS decided not to reschedule them. Once the season began, a downhill scheduled in St. Anton on 14 January had to be converted into a Super-G due to the inability to hold a pre-race training run on either of the two days prior to the downhill. However, a subsequent Super-G scheduled at Cortina d'Ampezzo was converted into a downhill, restoring the original schedule.
The women's super-G in the 2023 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup included eight events, including the final. The original schedule called for nine events, but a scheduled downhill at St. Anton on 14 January was converted to a super-G due to the inability to hold pre-race practice runs on either of the two days prior to the event. A later super-G at Cortina was converted into a downhill to restore the original schedule balance, but then a downhill at Crans Montana on 25 February had to be delayed a day due to fog and dangerous course conditions, and the super-G previously scheduled for that day was cancelled and not rescheduled.
The women's downhill in the 2019 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved eight events, including the season finals in Soldeu, Andorra. Defending discipline champion Sofia Goggia of Italy fractured her ankle prior to the start of the season and missed five of the eight events, ending her chances to repeat. In addition, 2018 runner-up Lindsey Vonn of the USA, who had closed the prior season by winning all of the final four downhills and needed only four more victories to equal Ingemar Stenmark's all-time World Cup victory record, began the season injured and announced her planned retirement at the end of the season, but was hampered during her comeback by her cumulative injuries, and finally retired immediately after the conclusion of the 2019 World Ski Championships.
The women's combined in the 2018 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved two events. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland won the first and then won the season championship and the crystal globe that accompanied it.
The Women's Combined in the 2017 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved three events, first a super-combined, and then two Alpine combined. Downhill champion Ilka Štuhec of Slovenia won the super-combined and held on to win the season championship. Interestingly, in only her second race in the combined discipline ever, overall World Cup champion Mikaela Shiffrin won the final race.
The women's overall competition in the 2024 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup is scheduled to consist of 41 events in four disciplines: downhill (DH), super-G (SG), giant slalom (GS), and slalom (SL). The schedule initially was planned to consist of 45 events, but two downhills on the Matterhorn in mid-November 2023 were cancelled due to high winds and not rescheduled. As noted below in the season summary, two other speed races scheduled for February were also cancelled, reducing the total to 41.
The women's giant slalom in the 2024 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup is scheduled to include eleven events, including the final. The season opened in Sölden, Austria on 28 October 2023.
