ALPINE SKIING Preview: Another win coming for Hirscher in Italy and Shiffrin in France?

Austria's Marcel Hirscher (Photo: Jonas Ericcsoon via Wikipedia)

One of the busiest weeks in this year’s World Cup continues for the men in Madonna di Campiglio (ITA) on Saturday, with two races for the women in Courchevel (FRA).

Men:

Austrian superstar Marcel Hirscher swept the Slalom and Parallel Giant Slalom in Alta Badia (ITA), finished sixth in the Giant Slalom and then won the Slalom in Saalbach (AUT) and comes to another Slalom at Madonna di Campiglio on the 22nd as the runaway favorite for his eighth World Cup overall win in a row. With 13 races out of 41 scheduled for the season, Hirscher leads Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen, 620-352 in the overall points standings.

Hirscher has won both Slaloms held this season, and won the last three in the 2017-18 World Cup season, so he’s working on a five-Slalom win streak, and 10 of the last 11! He’s amazing.

Hirscher also won in Madonna last season, but Norway’s Kristoffersen won over Hirscher in 2016 and 2015.

Look for results from Madonna here.

Women:

The women’s World Cup is in Courchevel (FRA), for a Giant Slalom and Slalom on the weekend. That means another opportunity for American superstar Mikaela Shiffrin to pile up more points in her best races. She won five of the 11 races on tour so far this season, including all three Slaloms and has a medal in one of the two Giant Slalom races. In her quest for a third straight overall World Cup title, she already has 689 points, to 359 for Nicole Schmidhofer (AUT).

Shiffrin won both the Giant Slalom and Parallel Slalom last season in Courchevel, over Tessa Worley (FRA) and Petra Vlhova (SVK), respectively.

Look for results from Courchevel here.