Narvik will not host the World Cup in March, Max Franz has retired, Marcel Hirscher has postponed his return and Mikaela Shiffrin has redrawn her season. Valérie Grenier, injured in training, will miss Sölden. The week in review, ahead of Saturday’s season opener.
Narvik withdraws its March races
The organising committee in Narvik, Norway, withdrew on 19 October from the World Cup races planned for March 2027. They were a women’s downhill and super-G, on a new course.
According to the committee, the course could in theory be finished, tested and homologated in time, but only at too great a risk. FIS agrees. Its race director, Peter Gerdol, said the World Cup could not afford such a gamble.
No replacement venue has yet been named for the two races. Narvik, for its part, says its ambitions for the 2029 World Championships, which it has been awarded, remain unchanged.
Max Franz calls it a day
Austria’s Max Franz announced the end of his career on 18 October, on Instagram. The Carinthian is 37. “Skiing was my life,” he wrote.
He won three World Cup races: the Val Gardena downhill in December 2016, then the Lake Louise downhill and the Beaver Creek super-G, a week apart, at the end of 2018. He added seven further podiums and downhill bronze at the 2017 World Championships in St. Moritz.
A training crash at Copper Mountain in November 2022 kept him away from racing for a long time. He fought his way back. He now stops on the eve of a new season.
Hirscher will have to wait
Marcel Hirscher will not start Sunday’s giant slalom in Sölden. His team announced the decision on 17 October. The eight-time overall champion, who now races for the Netherlands, is coming back from a torn cruciate ligament.
His progress is real, but he still lacks training volume, and the gaps measured on the hill remained too large. Like any wildcard, he would start with bib 31. FIS limits these wildcards to four per discipline.
Grenier faces knee surgery
Canada’s Valérie Grenier will miss the giant slalom in Sölden. She injured her knee in training there on Saturday 17 October and announced it on Instagram two days later.
She is due to have surgery today, Friday. “I won’t know the full extent of the injury until I go in for surgery this Friday,” she wrote.
Shiffrin puts giant slalom first
Mikaela Shiffrin, our very own E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, will start Saturday’s giant slalom in Sölden. She will not, however, race the opening slaloms in Levi and Gurgl, where she has won 11 times between them. FIS set out her programme on 19 October.
The most successful racer in World Cup history is building her season around giant slalom and super-G. After Sölden come Killington and Tremblant, then the speed races from Beaver Creek onwards. Slalom, in which she has won nine globes, will be the exception.
In Levi, the reindeer that goes to the winner will find a new owner this time.
Sölden and Levi, before the first races
On the Rettenbach glacier, fresh snow fell this week on a course that is ready. In Levi, rain was falling on Thursday on a single strip of man-made snow. Our two follow-up stories have the details.
Sölden, giant slaloms on 24 and 25 October. The countdown
Levi, slaloms on 14 and 15 November. Levi waits for the cold