Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova the women to beat this season as stars return in Solden – Tina Maze

Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova will do battle once more as the 2022-23 Alpine skiing season gets underway on Saturday with the opener in Solden.

The pair are the two premier skiers and according to Eurosport pundit Tina Maze their must-see rivalry will again be fierce.

Speaking ahead of the new season, Maze thinks Shiffrin holds the edge but Vlhova will push her every step of the way.

“Well, for me, the most complete skier is Mikaela Shiffrin – she has been for the last year,” said Maze.

“So, I see Petra Vlhova also as potential winner, but this competition is between them. It’s the best thing we can get in sport because having such athletes fighting for the globe, that makes sport interesting.

“I see many girls who can challenge, but as for technique I admire Mikaela – how she controls everything, how she’s not too risky, how she’s focused and stable on the skis. That’s what I like about Mikaela, so when I see a skier stable then I’m convinced she’s able to win the globe. But of course you have to fight for it through the season. Petra won’t make it easy for her.”

What about the men’s side?

Last season Marco Odermatt followed up a second-place finish in 2021 by taking his maiden title in 2022, adding in a giant slalom globe for good measure. Apart from the legendary Marcel Hirscher no man has retained the overall title since Stephan Eberharter in 2003. Can Odermatt?

“The most challenging thing is to stay on top,” says Maze. “It was for me, I never managed to win the globe again – so this is a big challenge.

“The way Marcel Hirscher did it was something really amazing and I hope Marco will follow on for years to come. Of course, it’s not easy. You’ll need to be ready all the time. You cannot make mistakes and I think he’s ready.”

As for his potential challengers, Maze says: “I hope Alexis Pinturault can do well this season. I will also find it interested to see what [Henrik] Kristoffersen did [in the off-season] and how he’s working with Marcel – I hope this will bring more competition in order to be closer together with Marco in the final placings.”

As she alluded to, Maze could not defend her title after her triumph in 2013 and she elaborated more on what makes it so difficult to retain.

“Yes, on one side, I achieved the record amount of points which was a really amazing season. It can also be tiring, especially how I did it, it’s better to win over the long term and constantly than doing big peaks as I had in my career,” she said.

This season, which marks Maze’s first as a regular Eurosport pundit, is also the 20th year since she made her debut on the tour. How does she feel that skiing has changed in that time?

“It is 20 years since I won my first World Cup race. Thanks to technology we can ski like we ski today. There are many things that are good,” she said.

“But you need to be very careful how much energy and focus you lose for such things as social media or photos. When I was skiing, I was on the ski slopes without a phone, I didn’t have focus for any kind of pictures, but I believe this has changed a little bit in generations.

“But I think technology and the development of skills and materials, it’s always improving, it’s always something new, it’s always going in a direction that makes everything faster and stronger. It’s normal to develop.

“But skiing is done with your body, it’s not a motor that you can fix. We are pushing the athletes and skiers to higher limits and the injuries that are happening in Alpine skiing are too much – that’s my opinion, because the body has limits. You need to know your limits, how much you can push your limits. Of course, you have to go over the limit sometimes but in a safe and not risky way, this is very tricky in Alpine skiing.”

Don’t miss a minute.