The Alpine Ski World Cup 2017/18 began on October 28, 2017 and ended on March 18, 2018.
The World Cup kick-off was to take place in Sölden ( Austria ) from October 28th to 29th, 2017 , but the men's giant slalom, which would have been planned for Sunday, was canceled due to the bad weather. During the XXIII. Winter Olympics from February 9 to 25, 2018 in Pyeongchang ( South Korea ) the season was interrupted. The World Cup final was to take place in Åre ( Sweden ) from March 14th to 18th, 2018 , but the women's giant slalom and the men's slalom, which would have been planned for Sunday, were canceled due to the bad weather.
The most important innovation concerned the ski radius in the men's giant slalom. This has been reduced from 35 meters to 30 meters. This was to counter the back problems of many athletes. In addition, the men's course setters in Super-G, giant slalom and slalom were drawn five days before the races and no longer before the season. In addition, for the first time in many years, the women's downhill should have been held in two rounds.
Felix Neureuther : Cruciate ligament rupture during training on November 25th, although he decided late to have an operation (performed in Innsbruck).
Gino Caviezel : Broken collarbone on November 15th during giant slalom training in Zinal , whereupon he was operated on the same afternoon. He also suffered a concussion when he fell. A break of six weeks was predicted, but shortly afterwards he returned to racing.
Stefan Luitz : on December 17th, the cruciate ligament ruptured after driving for about 9 seconds in the first round of the giant slalom in Alta Badia .
Roland Leitinger : Torn cruciate ligament on January 11th while skiing on the Reiteralm.
Women:
Simone Wild : on October 25th, crack in the right shin below the knee during training on the Diavolezza (Engadin); she was able to start again at the giant slalom in Killington on November 25th.
Michelle Gisin : on October 25th during training on the Sölden Glacier with an inner ligament tear in her right knee; she was also able to start again in the Levi slalom (November 11th), where she finished 15th.
Marie-Michèle Gagnon : on November 30th during downhill training in Lake Louise, the anterior cruciate ligament tore in the right knee, resulting in failure for the entire season.
Elena Fanchini : According to various reports on January 14th, the downhill runner-up world champion from 2005 was diagnosed with a tumor, so she had to end the season.
Jacqueline Wiles : on the downhill run on February 3rd in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (cruciate ligament tear, fibula fracture, fracture of the tibial head; thus Olympic exit).
The young Swiss hope Mélanie Meillard and Austria's Stefan Brennsteiner with the injuries at the Olympics, which also meant the premature end of the season.
On March 20, immediately after the end of the season, the cruciate ligament and meniscus tear in her left knee with Stephanie Brunner , who actually only rode for training purposes in the downhill run of the Austrian youth championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm. She was operated on the same day in Innsbruck.
Thomas Fanara started practically a year after his cruciate ligament rupture on December 4, 2016 in Val-d'Isère for the first time in Beaver Creek on December 3, 2017; he finished 28th in the giant slalom there.
Michaela Kirchgasser was - after a knee operation in May - back at the slalom in Killington (November 26th).
Both Taïna Barioz (injured on December 28, 2016 in the second round of the giant slalom at Semmering ) and Eva-Maria Brem returned at the giant slalom in Killington.
In the downhill from Lake Louise it was Cornelia Hütter (who also won) and the two “Zauchensee victims” from January 2017, Nadia Fanchini (38th place) and Edit Miklós (44th place). Miklòs and Hütter suffered further injuries: The Hungarian fell on January 15th at the finish line of the Super-G in Bad Kleinkirchheim and was canceled for the rest of the season. Hütter fell on March 8th during giant slalom training on the Reiteralm ; She was diagnosed with a bruised lung and a lesion of the spleen , with which she was unable to compete in the season finale in Åre.
Julia Mancuso with an attempt at a comeback after 2 years and 8 months (hip operation in summer 2015): She started the slalom of the aborted combination of St. Moritz on December 8th, where she was last; it wasn't about the placement, but about returning to the US team. On January 19, at her 399th World Cup start, her career finally ended on the first descent in Cortina d'Ampezzo.
On March 9th, Veronique Hronek made a comeback in the giant slalom in Ofterschwang after about three years .
World Cup decisions
With regard to the overall World Cup, it was already practically clear before the interruption due to the Olympic Games that both Marcel Hirscher (at that time 1294 points ahead of Henrik Kristoffersen with 1045) and Mikaela Shiffrin (1513, second Wendy Holdener with 842) would repeat their previous year's successes. Shiffrin had skipped several speed races in between without getting into serious trouble. In the slalom she led the discipline classification with 780 points (Vlhová 605). After the Olympics, she only returned to the World Cup circuit in Ofterschwang , where she secured victory in the slalom classification. Hirscher secured both the big ball and the small balls in giant slalom and slalom (as in the previous year) in Kranjska Gora . It was not possible for Kristoffersen to catch up because he was not allowed to start in the speed disciplines due to insufficient FIS points.
Men's:
Departure: Beat Feuz was able to conquer the first ball of his career at the final in Åre, in which he started with 60 points ahead of Aksel Lund Svindal . When Svindal was placed in the final descent behind Feuz, who had already started in front of him and was in first place at the time, the victory of the Swiss was certain. Preliminary decisions were made in Kitzbühel and Garmisch-Partenkirchen : ranks 2 and 1 for Feuz, while Svindal took ranks 8 and 4. Dominik Paris was already disregarded after leaving Kvitfjell .
Super-G: Thanks to the failure or the low number of points of his competitors Svindal and Vincent Kriechmayr in the penultimate race in Kvitfjell (also with his own victory), Kjetil Jansrud , who had led with 260 points compared to 214 and 200 respectively, was confirmed early as the discipline winner. The Norwegian Association has secured this rating again in uninterrupted order since 2011/12. With the twelfth little ball (Svindal 5; Jansrud 3; Aamodt, Thorsen, Skårdal, Kilde 1 each) the Norwegians underpinned their supremacy in this discipline.
Combination: As always, this decision was made weeks before the end of the season, whereby the four-time winner and also winner of the first season competition, Alexis Pinturault , did not take the chance for another title by not taking part in Wengen (he preferred training).
Women:
Departure: Sofia Goggia went into the final with 429 points, followed by Lindsey Vonn (406); Tina Weirather also had theoretical chances (358). Vonn won in Åre, but since Goggia came in second, the latter remained three points ahead and she was the second woman of the FISI (after Isolde Kostner 2000/01 and 2001/02) to win the downhill discipline. Vonn, who had missed her chances with a bad start to the season, was able to reduce the difference to Ingemar Stenmark's record (86 wins) with her 82nd race win .
Super-G: Before the penultimate race, Lara Gut was still ahead of Weirather (321) with 339 points; third-placed Johanna Schnarf (233) was already without a chance. But Weirather won in Crans-Montana (7th place for Gut), so that the Liechtenstein woman traveled to Sweden with a 52 point lead. Because Gut was eliminated there, the decision was made.
Giant slalom: Viktoria Rebensburg's lead over Tessa Worley was 92 points, so it would have been difficult for the French woman (she should have won, Rebensburg had no points) to defend her title from last year. Due to the weather-related cancellation, it was already clear on the morning of March 18 that the 2010 Olympic champion had secured the rating for the third time (after 2010/11 and 2011/12).
Combination: The decision was made later than for the men at the beginning of March, with Wendy Holdener's fourth place in Crans-Montana giving a clear lead.
Notes and statistics
Marcel Hirscher was able to equalize the 13 victories achieved by Ingemar Stenmark and Hermann Maier from the 1978/79 and 2000/01 seasons , with the cancellation of the final slalom in Åre taking away the opportunity to improve this record. In the various other rankings he is in second place behind Stenmark in the men's area: He has 58 World Cup victories, 17 crystal balls and 123 podium places, the Swede has a balance of 86-18-155. However, Stenmark achieved "only" three successes in the overall World Cup (to a significant extent also because of the cancellation point regulation at that time).
With Mélanie and Loïc Meillard , two siblings won the “Rising Stars” awards, which honor the top-ranked female driver under the age of 21 and the top-rated driver under the age of 23 in the overall World Cup.
Other events
The Swedish runner Kajsa Kling took a break for this season.
The men's races in Adelboden were endangered because the access road was interrupted. Thanks to uninterrupted work, even at night, it was possible to clear them so that the convoy with all the people and equipment involved in the race arrived on time.
For the first time in the history of the World Cup there was a triple victory for Italy's women in a World Cup descent on January 14th in Bad Kleinkirchheim.
On January 20, Thomas Dreßen not only achieved the first downhill victory of a DSV runner in Kitzbühel since Sepp Ferstl exactly 39 years ago (January 20, 1979), but also the first since Max Rauffer's on December 18, 2004 in Val Gardena .
On the same day, Lindsey Vonn became the oldest female downhill champion in her downhill victory in Cortina at the age of 33 years and 94 days; she replaced Elisabeth Görgl .
The 1.55 s lead of Wendy Holdener on Marta Bassino when winning the combination on January 26th on the Lenzerheide was the biggest time difference in this discipline so far.
Tristan G. Davies was the first Briton who was allowed to set a course in the history of the World Cup: on March 4th in the first run of the men's slalom in Kranjska Gora.
Several races had to be driven on a shortened route due to bad weather or snow conditions:
The men's Super-G in Kitzbühel on January 19th, which was not only held on a replacement course, but whose goal was placed on the edge of the local mountain. The spectators in the finish area got to watch the race on the video wall.
The women's Super-G in Cortina d'Ampezzo on January 21st, this race being canceled after the number 44.
The two women's runs from Garmisch-Partenkirchen did not go as planned due to the snow conditions. A “sprint descent” (a shortened descent consisting of two parts) was planned for February 3, but only one run could be run that was considerably shorter than the norm, and the next day it was the same procedure; nevertheless, both runs counted as one World Cup race each.
At the season finale, it was the speed competitions, but also the men's giant slalom.
Marcel Hirscher
Mikaela Shiffrin
Beat Feuz
Sofia Goggia
Kjetil Jansrud
Tina Weirather
Viktoria Rebensburg
Petra Vlhová
Frida Hansdotter
Tessa Worley
Ana Drev
Erin Mielzynski
Pavel Trichichev
