Industry News
The World Cup season may be over, but the drama certainly isn’t. While the overall season trophy, the Big Crystal Globe, went to Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami, second-placed Federica Brignone from Italy seems to still have a battle axe to grind. In an interview with Italian newspaper Repubblica, the Italian skier made some rather surprising allegations against U.S. ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin, accusing the American of not giving everything to defend her title as Overall World Cup champion. Mikaela Shiffrin has won the Big Crystal Globe a total of five times, in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023.
“Lara would have won the Cup anyway. Only I stood up to her. Mikaela didn’t show up at certain races, she avoided a difficult competition [with Lara].”
— Federica Brignone
Brignone suggests that Shiffrin should have competed at the World Cup races in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, which Shiffrin elected to skip due to a lingering cold. The scheduled races were a Downhill and a Super-G, both disciplines that Shiffrin has the least victories in. So the American’s decision to focus on her core disciplines was certainly strategically defendable. At that point, Shiffrin was leading the World Cup standings by 207 points.
Brignone does not agree, “I think Lara would have given her a lot of competition, yes, she would probably have won either way,” Brignone is quoted in the Repubblica article. “At the moment when Shiffrin should have competed, she did not compete. She couldn’t afford to miss races this winter and in my opinion, she almost gave up in order not to have to fight Lara.”
Brignone’s accusation that Shiffrin did not compete when she should have competed seems harsh. Even worse, the Italian doubles down, insinuating Shiffrin was afraid of the competition with Gut-Behrami and deliberately avoided the duel with the Swiss skier. It seems an almost ludicrous accusation considering Shiffrin was leading the overall standings before the injury by more than 400 points — the equivalent of four victories or five second places, showing that her decision to focus on her core competencies was a wise one. The race she crashed in was a Downhill race, Shiffrin’s weakest discipline by comparison. With a winning rate of 35.7% of races she enters and a podium rate of 55.3%, it would have easily been predictable that Shiffrin would have won the season by approximately 300-400 points, ahead of Gut-Behrami.
The accusation is also bizarre considering Brignone herself could have competed in more races. Shiffrin is one of the few female athletes who compete across all four Alpine FIS disciplines: Downhill, Super-G, Giant Slalom, and Slalom. Even more impressive, the American skier regularly podiums in all four disciplines as well. Out of her 97 World Cup victories, Shiffrin racked up four Downhill victories, five Super-G, 22 Giant Slalom, and 60 Slalom victories. While Brignone has never podiumed in Slalom, she does occasionally compete in Slalom races and did start two races this season in Lienz, Austria, and Åre, Sweden. If she had consistently competed in Slalom throughout the season and placed in the top 30, she would have potentially earned the 135 FIS points she was behind Gut-Behrami.
It rather seems that these words were spoken more out of her own frustration about the season, that saw the Italian without a Crystal Globe. Brignone claimed the Overall Title in 2020 and won in total three discipline titles, the last of which was in 2022. This season, Brignone only won six World Cup races, four Giant Slalom and two Super-G events, while Shiffrin despite her injury won nine races, seven Slalom events, one Super-G, and one Downhill race. Brignone is 33 years old now and has not announced a retirement but could possibly be facing her last season in 24/25. 32-year-old Lara Gut-Behrami admitted that she felt that she most likely only had one more season in her and did not want the exertion of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
Maybe these words were spoken to encourage Shiffrin—we would like to give Brignone the benefit of the doubt—but at this point, it feels like rather odd timing by the Italian ski racer. In addition, Brignone has been known to not hold back and has many times clashed with teammate Sofia Goggia, with whom she has had a long-standing rivalry.
How many races does Brignone compete in verses Mikaela and Lara annually? Who’s smarter? Lara takes time to recover as does Mikaela.