The women's overall competition in the 2025 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup is currently scheduled to consist of 35 events in four disciplines: downhill (DH) (8 races), super-G (SG) (8 races), giant slalom (GS) (9 races), and slalom (SL) (10 races).[1] As of 22 February 2025, two races (a super-G and a giant slalom) have been cancelled during the season.
After total cancellations in each of the prior two seasons, the two downhills scheduled on the Matterhorn in mid-November were removed from the schedule.[2] Also, for the third straight season, only the four major disciplines will be contested on the World Cup circuit.
As is the case every odd year, the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2025 was held, this time in Saalbach, Austria during 4–16 February 2025.[3] Gold medals at the worlds were won by Breezy Johnson of the United States in the downhill, Stephanie Venier of Austria in the super-G, Federica Brignone of Italy in the giant slalom, Camille Rast of Switzerland in the slalom. Johnson (DH) and Mikaela Shiffrin (SL) of the United States in the team combined, and Italy (including Giorgia Collomb and Lara Della Mea) in the mixed-team parallel, while the only woman to win three medals was Wendy Holdener of Switzerland with three silvers (slalom, team combined, and mixed-team parallel).
Season summary
The early season
The first race of the season, a giant slalom scheduled as usual on the Rettenbach glacier in Sölden, Austria in October, was won by 2020 overall champion Federica Brignone of Italy, who rallied from third place after the opening run with the seventh-fastest time in the second run to overtake both of the racers ahead of her.[4] With the victory, Brignone, who is 34, became the oldest woman ever to win a World Cup race.[4] Because this race was held so early in the fall, neither 2016 and 2024 overall champion Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland nor 2021 overall champion Petra Vlhová of Slovakia had recovered from prior surgeries sufficiently to be able to compete, although Gut-Behrami entered the race but did not start. Three weeks later, picking up where she left off, five-time (2017–19, 2022–23) overall champion Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States won the slalom in Levi, Finland, giving her the season lead and an all-time record 98 total victories in World Cup skiing.[5] After the race, Shiffrin stated that "from this weekend, I am racing every single weekend until world championships, for sure. So it’s going be a really big push now."[5] Shiffrin then won her 99th career victory in another slalom the following week in Gurgl, Austria.[6]
In the very next race, at Shiffrin's "home" course in Killington, Vermont, US, Shiffrin made her first try for her 100th World Cup victory. As in the prior giant slalom in Sölden, she held the lead going into the second run. However, while still in the lead shortly after the midpoint of the course, she suffered a hard crash into the fencing, which resulted in her being stretchered off the course; the crash handed the win to Sara Hector of Sweden.[7] Shiffrin's injury was eventually diagnosed as an abdominal puncture wound (which could not be stitched up due to the possibility of infection) combined with "severe muscle trauma", and she was anticipated to miss at least the next two weeks.[8]
In the first race without Shiffrin, Camille Rast of Switzerland, who had posted her first two World Cup podiums ever by placing third in the prior two races, rallied from third after the second leg to post her first World Cup victory and take the lead in the overall standing for the season.[9] In an injury update, Shiffrin posted on 9 December (over a week after the accident) that she was finally able to walk outside her house, making it appear that her return to competition might not take place in December.[10] Shortly thereafter, Shiffrin had to undergo abdominal surgery to clean out the wound, keeping her completely away from the rest of the North American swing of the World Cup (even as a spectator) and delaying her return to competition still further.[11]
However, Shiffrin was not the only female American multiple-time champion making news. Around the same time, 40-year-old four-time World Cup overall champion Lindsey Vonn of the United States, Shiffrin's former teammate (and the third-winningest skier in World Cup history, with 82 total race victories) who retired during the 2019 season due to injuries and has since had a complete knee replacement, announced the end of her retirement and then qualified for a possible return to the World Cup circuit.[12] And Vonn served as a forerunner for the first-ever women's competitive run on the Birds of Prey course at Beaver Creek, Colorado (USA), the first speed race of the women's season, which was won by defending downhill discipline champion Cornelia Hütter of Austria.[13] After the race, Vonn said she would return to competition the next week in St. Moritz.[13] And the last race of the North America swing, which was also the first super-G of the season, was won by another athlete making an injury comeback: Sofia Goggia of Italy; the win, coupled with a second the day before, moved Goggia into sixth position for the season.[14]
Mid-season
Vonn did indeed return when the races moved back to Europe, and she placed 14th in her first race back. The first super-G at St. Moritz was won by Hütter, followed by Gut-Behrami and Goggia, moving Hütter into overall second and both Goggia and Gut-Behrami into the overall top five.[15] The second super-G was canceled due to strong winds and poor visibility.[16] After the Christmas break, the next giant slalom, held after Christmas in Semmering (AUT), came down to a second-run battle between Brignone and Gut-Behrami, which was decided when Gut-Behrami hooked a gate with her arm, handing the victory and the overall season lead to Brignone.[17] The next three races were all technical events: two slaloms and a giant slalom. The two slaloms, which bracketed New Year's Day, were both won by 20-year-old rising star Zrinka Ljutić of Croatia, propelling her into the overall season lead (as well as the lead in the slalom discipline).[18][19] In between, Hector was able to win the giant slalom and reclaim the season lead in that discipline.[20]
The following two speed races in St. Anton, Austria featured Brignone returning to the overall lead with a victory in the downhill (her first-ever in the discipline, breaking Vonn's record as the oldest downhill winner)[21] and a third in the super-G, which was won by Vonn's American teammate Lauren Macuga.[22] Vonn's finishes (6th in the downhill, 4th in the super-G) also continued to attract media attention for the U.S. team,[23] while another story was the success of the "new wave" of skiers, including Croatia's Ljutić (20), the U.S.'s Macuga (22), Albania's Lara Colturi (18), and Swiss newcomer Malorie Blanc (18), who finished second in the St. Anton downhill in her second-ever World Cup race.[24] Another slalom two days later in Flachau (Austria) caused the overall lead to change hands again, when Camille Rast charged from eighth after the first run to post her second World Cup victory and seize the overall lead for the season, with Hector also moving ahead of Brignone.[25] But Brignone immediately regained the overall lead by finished third in the next race, a downhill at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, with her countrywoman Goggia triumphing.[26] Brignone then kept the Italian winning streak alive in speed races by winning the next two, a super-G at Cortina[27] and a downhill at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (by 1/100 of a second over Goggia), enabling her to open up a double-digit point lead over Gut-Behrami.[28] But between them, Alice Robinson of New Zealand won a giant slalom held at Kronplatz, Italy, in a race where Hector, Brignone and Goggia failed to finish, and edged out Hector by four points for the season lead in that discipline.[29] And in the final race at Garmisch, Gut-Behrami won the super-G for her 46th career World Cup victory, placing her fifth all-time among women, behind only Shiffrin, Vonn, Annemarie Moser-Pröll, and Vreni Schneider and closing her deficit to Brignone in the overall standings down to 70 points.[30]
At long last, Shiffrin announced her upcoming return at the slalom in Courcheval, France on 30 January, a full nine weeks after her injury and less than a week before the start of the world championships.[31] At Courcheval, Ljutić posted her third slalom victory of the season, making her the first woman other than Schiffrin or Vhlová to win three slaloms in one season since Marlies Schild of Austria in 2012.[32]
Late season: the rise of Brignone, while Shiffrin reaches 100
After the worlds, in the first of two GS races in Sestriere, Italy, Brignone, who had bee sick with the flu since worlds, repeated her success and prevailed by four-tenths of a second, with Gut-Behrami failing to finish.[33] The next day, Brignone dominated again, winning her fourth GS of the season to move into second in the discipline, just 40 points behind Robinson with only two races remaining, while expanding her lead over Gut-Behrami (who finished second) to 180 points with only 12 events remaining.[34] In the slalom, after more time to recover and build strength, Shiffrin turned a slight lead over Ljutić after the first run into a wide victory on the second run, giving her a third victory for the season -- and an all-time record 100 World Cup victories in Alpine skiing overall, as well as tying the all-time record of 155 World Cup podium finishes that had been set by Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark almost 40 years ago.[35][36]
Finals
The finals in all disciplines will be held from 22 to 27 March 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho, US.[37] Only the top 25 skiers in each World Cup discipline and the winner of the Junior World Championship in the discipline, plus any skiers who have scored at least 500 points in the World Cup overall classification for the season, are eligible to compete in the final, and only the top 15 finishers earn World Cup points.
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