26 days. The last World Cup race before the Milano Cortina Olympics was the men’s downhill at Crans-Montana on 1 February. The next was the women’s downhill at Soldeu on 27 February. The archive records 73 World Cup races in 2025/26 and not one of them inside that gap, the longest mid-season break in the calendar.
The medals
| Men’s event | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| Downhill | Franjo von Allmen (SUI) | Giovanni Franzoni (ITA) +0.20 | Dominik Paris (ITA) +0.50 |
| Super-G | Franjo von Allmen (SUI) | Ryan Cochran-Siegle (USA) +0.13 | Marco Odermatt (SUI) +0.28 |
| Giant slalom | Lucas Pinheiro Braathen (BRA) | Marco Odermatt (SUI) +0.58 | Loïc Meillard (SUI) +1.17 |
| Slalom | Loïc Meillard (SUI) | Fabio Gstrein (AUT) +0.35 | Henrik Kristoffersen (NOR) +1.13 |
| Team combined | von Allmen / Nef (SUI) | Kriechmayr / Feller (AUT) and Odermatt / Meillard (SUI), both +0.99 | no bronze awarded |
| Women’s event | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| Downhill | Breezy Johnson (USA) | Emma Aicher (GER) +0.04 | Sofia Goggia (ITA) +0.59 |
| Super-G | Federica Brignone (ITA) | Romane Miradoli (FRA) +0.41 | Cornelia Hütter (AUT) +0.52 |
| Giant slalom | Federica Brignone (ITA) | Sara Hector (SWE) and Thea Louise Stjernesund (NOR), both +0.62 | no bronze awarded |
| Slalom | Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) | Camille Rast (SUI) +1.50 | Anna Swenn Larsson (SWE) +1.71 |
| Team combined | Rädler / Huber (AUT) | Weidle-Winkelmann / Aicher (GER) +0.05 | Wiles / Moltzan (USA) +0.25 |
Who the Games made, and who they cost
Franjo von Allmen won the downhill, the super-G and the team combined. He had two World Cup wins all winter — the Val Gardena downhill in December and the Crans-Montana downhill on the last day before the break — and three Olympic golds in February. He finished second in the World Cup downhill standings, 191 points behind Marco Odermatt.
Lucas Pinheiro Braathen won the giant slalom by 0.58 from Odermatt: Brazil’s and South America’s first Winter Olympic gold. He won the World Cup giant slalom globe seven weeks later, also at Odermatt’s expense, also on the last day.
Federica Brignone won super-G and giant slalom gold having started two World Cup races all season while recovering from a broken leg. She did not race for a globe. She skipped the Soldeu restart because of continuing pain, and said that if it became torture she would make different decisions.
Marco Odermatt took three medals and no gold. He won the first men’s World Cup race after the break, the Garmisch downhill, by 0.04 in a Swiss 1-2-3 ahead of Alexis Monney and Stefan Rogentin. That was his 54th World Cup win, level with Hermann Maier, and the last of his season.
Lindsey Vonn crashed in the Olympic downhill on 8 February and shattered her left leg. She had been on the podium in all five World Cup downhills held to that point, winning two of them at 41, and led the discipline on 400 points. She had multiple operations and did not race again; she said full bone healing would take about a year.
What the break did to the globe races
The women restarted with twelve races left and four globes live. The standings on 27 February:
| Women’s standings at the restart | 1st | 2nd | 3rd |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | Shiffrin 1,133 | Rast 963 | Aicher 684 |
| Downhill | Vonn 400 (out) | Aicher 256 | Weidle-Winkelmann 232 |
| Super-G | Goggia 280 | Robinson 220 | Vonn 190 (out) |
| Giant slalom | Scheib 560 | Rast 471 | Hector 429 |
| Slalom | Shiffrin 780 (clinched) | Rast 492 | Holdener 358 |
Corinne Suter won that first downhill back by 0.11 from Nina Ortlieb: the 2022 Olympic champion’s first win since a super-G in December 2022, and her first podium of a season interrupted by a December training crash. She had finished 14th at the Games. Aicher cut Vonn’s lead to 94 points with three races left, and still lost the globe — to Laura Pirovano, who was fifth in the Olympic super-G and sixth in the Olympic downhill and had never stood on a World Cup podium.
Every women’s speed globe that was decided in March was decided over an injured leader. That is the clearest thing the Olympics did to this World Cup.
Sources
- skiracing.com/milano-cortina-2026-alpine-olympic-medal-rec…
- fis-ski.com/alpine-skiing/news/2025-26/from-olympic-meda…
- thestar.com.my/sport/others/2026/02/27/alpine-skiing-suter-…
- fis-ski.com/alpine-skiing/news/2025-26/masterclass-from-…
- fis-ski.com/alpine-skiing/news/2025-26/sensational-pirov…
- fis-ski.com/alpine-skiing/news/2025-26/von-allmen-contin…