The Albany Gazette - Shiffrin sidesteps slalom in 'exploration' season

"I am really excited at the opportunity to have space to focus a bit more with giant slalom and super-G," Shiffrin said Friday.

"I'm looking forward to the chance to have this space to kind of play with how I'm training, when I'm training, how I'm having recovery days as well. So this is kind of the thinking behind this. But I don't have much of a plan beyond, like I want to see how it feels."

Shiffrin, 31, won nine of the 10 World Cup slaloms races last season and also picked up an Olympic gold medal in the discipline.

"Since the beginning of my career, I felt like at some point there might be a little bit of a shift in my schedule," the American insisted.

"But for so long, I was doing the same thing, and I always felt motivated to do the same thing. So, this last year or after the last season, my motivation maybe shifted a little bit.

"I think it's just my job to listen to that and to hear what my body is saying, hear what my mind is saying, and then maybe that provides a bit more longevity in the sport."

Turning to Saturday's giant slalom opener, Shiffrin was cautious, saying she was treating it more like a high-intensity training run.

"I don't think you should put me on your bingo card to win this race!" she said.

"But I think my skiing's been pretty strong, and I would hope to be competitive."

- No saving energy -

Switzerland's Marco Odermatt wrapped up the men's overall title last season for a fifth successive year and will be a firm favourite to continue his dominant showing, form and injury notwithstanding.

But the 29-year-old, searching a fourth Soelden victory to equal the record of his childhood hero, American skier Ted Ligety, is expecting stiff competition from his younger rivals, not least Brazil's Lucas Pinheiro Braathen.

"I guess I'm still hungry, for sure," he said. "Hopefully I can still stay a little bit."

Odermatt also played down backing off the gas until the Crans Montana world championships in February.

"I have to hope that the body continues there," he said, insisting that the at-times brutal race schedule meant there was "no place to save some energy".

One major absentee this season will be Shiffrin's partner Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who ruptured an achilles tendon in training in Chile in the latest blow to his career.

"He's heartbroken," Shiffrin said. "But he finds a way to somehow be grateful for things anyway."

The season will also kick off without Italian stars Federica Brignone and Sofia Goggia, and also American veteran Lindsey Vonn, who suffered a terrible leg injury in a fall at the Cortina Olympics.

One person anxiously awaiting the start of the season will be Alexander Ospelt, the newly-elected president of the International Ski Federation (FIS), plunged into a period of austerity as part of cost-cutting measures.

Ospelt beat the highly unpopular incumbent Johan Eliasch, who had been criticised for poor communication and bad management of FIS finances.

"I'm really relieved that we're at the start of the season, we're coming on the snow and the athletes should now be in our focus," Ospelt said in some understatement.

(N.Miller--TAG)