World Cup skiing opens with Shiffrin nearing 100 wins, notable comebacks and new safety measures

SOELDEN, Austria (AP) — A series of high-profile crashes in the previous Alpine skiing season throws a shadow over the start of the new World Cup campaign this weekend, as many of the injured skiers have not recovered yet.

Former overall champions Alexis Pinturault and Petra Vlhova have postponed their comebacks until December, Austrian allrounder Marco Schwarz’s return is still undetermined, and Norwegian standout Aleksander Aamodt Kilde will even sit out the entire season.

Still, two giant slaloms on a glacier in Austria, with the women racing on Saturday and the men on Sunday, will open a pre-Olympic season that offers ski racing fans a lot to look forward to.

American star Mikaela Shiffrin needs three more victories to get her record-extending 100th career World Cup win; Marco Odermatt eyes his fourth straight overall championship; and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen and Marcel Hirscher return, coming out of retirement and switching allegiances to Brazil and the Netherlands, respectively.

Usually not keeping a close eye on the numbers and stats behind her achievements, Shiffrin admits that approaching win No. 100 does mean a lot to her.

“Bringing energy to the sport is never a bad thing, whether you want to talk about records or statistics. I’m feeling right now energized by people bringing up 100. I think it’s incredible people are still following along this journey and excited about it,” the two-time Olympic champion said.

Apart from adding to her tally of 97 wins, Shiffrin is expected to be among the main contenders for the overall championship again, even though she will skip the downhills this season.

Having won the big globe five times, Shiffrin led the standings by 340 points in January when a crash on the 2026 Olympic downhill course in Cortina d’Ampezzo forced the American into a six-week break from racing, enabling Lara Gut-Behrami to overtake her and crown her strong finish to the season with the overall title, the Swiss star's second.

It made for a double Swiss triumph, since Odermatt dominated the men’s competition with a whopping 874 point-lead in the final standings.

One of Odermatt’s standout performances was winning two downhills within three days on home snow in Wengen — a feat he won’t be able to repeat this season as no World Cup venue will stage more than one downhill in a single weekend to reduce risks of crashes and injuries.

Last season, Val Gardena and Kitzbuehel, and on the women's side Cortina and Crans-Montana, also hosted two races in the sport’s fastest and physically most demanding discipline.

But with fatigue and exhaustion looming for speed racers competing in such a tight schedule, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation has spread the nine downhills for the men and the eight for the women over as many different venues this time.

In other steps to make the sport safer, FIS has made airbags under the race suits compulsory at all speed events, more than a decade after a system similar to the one long used in motorcycle racing was first introduced to ski racing in 2013.

And as of the 2025-26 season, cut-resistant underwear will become mandatory as well, preventing skiers who crash from getting hurt by the sharp edges of their skis.

The airbag inflates as soon as a skier loses control and can reduce the impact of a crash on the upper body and neck, but still divides opinions among racers.

“I find the airbag positive, but the airbag alone will not be the future,” said Vincent Kriechmayr, the 2021 downhill and super-G world champion from Austria.

“We must see that we make the sport safer in many aspects, but skiing, and especially the downhill, will never be safe. There will always be danger, but that is the thrill.”

American allrounder River Radamus called the airbags “a good innovation. With Kilde and Pinturault and all the crashes that we’ve had in speed recently, it's a reminder of how dangerous what we do is. If we can make those horrific, catastrophic injuries a little less possible, that’s only a good thing for the sport.”

However, Gut-Behrami has not been wearing the system, and she would have preferred to keep it that way.

“We talked with our supplier and they still have got no regulations, so why should I put on an airbag when we don’t know what it protects?” Gut-Behrami posed, adding she initially supported the system.

“I was fully convinced and thought safety is the most important, but now there are a lot of questions and I would rather not wear one. I have looked into it at MotoGP, there are rules there what the airbags should protect, but we don’t have those rules. I don’t know whether an airbag opens in three seconds or in half a second, so that only creates uncertainty.”

Italian skier Elena Curtoni, who hasn’t raced since injuring her knee in a super-G crash in December, has been wearing airbags since the beginning.

“If there’s an extra thing on a safety level, why wouldn’t you use it?” Curtoni asked, adding she has already been wearing the cut-resistant underwear as well.

“The reality is that I really feel safer,” the Italian said. “We go out there with knives under our feet.”

AP Sports Writer Daniella Matar in Milan contributed to this report.

Eric Willemsen on X: https://x.com/eWilmedia

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

From left, Switzerland's Lara Gut Behrami, Austria's Manuel Feller, Austria's Cornelia Huetter, United States' Mikaela Shiffrin and Switzerland's Marco Odermatt meet the media ahead of an alpine ski, women's and men's World Cup giant slalom in Soelden Austria, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati)

Switzerland's Marco Odermatt meets the media ahead of an alpine ski, men's World Cup giant slalom in Soelden Austria, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati)

FILE - Switzerland's Marco Odermatt holds the alpine ski men's World Cup overall title trophy, as he celebrates on the podium, in Saalbach, Austria, on March 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)

FILE - Switzerland's Lara Gut Behrami poses with the alpine ski, women's World Cup overall trophy, in Saalbach, Austria, on March 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. flu infections showed signs of a slight decline last week, but health officials say it is not clear that this severe flu season has peaked.

New government data posted Friday — for flu activity through last week — showed declines in medical office visits due to flu-like illness and in the number of states reporting high flu activity.

However, some measures show this season is already surpassing the flu epidemic of last winter, one of the harshest in recent history. And experts believe there is more suffering ahead.

“This is going to be a long, hard flu season,” New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said, in a statement Friday.

One type of flu virus, called A H3N2, historically has caused the most hospitalizations and deaths in older people. So far this season, that is the type most frequently reported. Even more concerning, more than 91% of the H3N2 infections analyzed were a new version — known as the subclade K variant — that differs from the strain in this year’s flu shots.

The last flu season saw the highest overall flu hospitalization rate since the H1N1 flu pandemic 15 years ago. And child flu deaths reached 289, the worst recorded for any U.S. flu season this century — including that H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009-2010.

So far this season, there have been at least 15 million flu illnesses and 180,000 hospitalizations, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. It also estimates there have been 7,400 deaths, including the deaths of at least 17 children.

Last week, 44 states reported high flu activity, down slightly from the week before. However, flu deaths and hospitalizations rose.

Determining exactly how flu season is going can be particularly tricky around the holidays. Schools are closed, and many people are traveling. Some people may be less likely to see a doctor, deciding to just suffer at home. Others may be more likely to go.

Also, some seasons see a surge in cases, then a decline, and then a second surge.

For years, federal health officials joined doctors' groups in recommending that everyone 6 months and older get an annual influenza vaccine. The shots may not prevent all symptoms but can prevent many infections from becoming severe, experts say.

But federal health officials on Monday announced they will no longer recommend flu vaccinations for U.S. children, saying it is a decision parents and patients should make in consultation with their doctors.

“I can’t begin to express how concerned we are about the future health of the children in this country, who already have been unnecessarily dying from the flu — a vaccine preventable disease,” said Michele Slafkosky, executive director of an advocacy organization called Families Fighting Flu.

“Now, with added confusion for parents and health care providers about childhood vaccines, I fear that flu seasons to come could be even more deadly for our youngest and most vulnerable," she said in a statement.

Flu is just one of a group of viruses that tend to strike more often in the winter. Hospitalizations from COVID-19 and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, also have been rising in recent weeks — though were not diagnosed nearly as often as flu infections, according to other federal data.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - Pharmacy manager Aylen Amestoy administers a patient with a seasonal flu vaccine at a CVS Pharmacy in Miami, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)