The world's fastest Women will gather in St. Moritz (Switzerland) next weekend for the first speed events. Two Super-G races are scheduled to take place in the Upper Engadine Valley on the World Championship course “Engiadina” on Corviglia.
Last season Sofia Goggia returned in St. Moritz to her winning ways with a Super-G victory. Goggia was characteristically aggressive and risky, and the style paid off massively. She bested her teammate Federica Brignone by merely 0.01 seconds. Mikaela Shiffrin joined the Italian duo to complete the podium (+0.13 s.). In a tight race, the top 10 racers were all within one second of each other, and there was a three-way tie for sixth with Nina Ortlieb (AUT), Corinne Suter (SUI), and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie (NOR).
In 2019 an unstoppable Mikaela Shiffrin followed up her career-first Audi FIS Ski World Cup super-G win in Lake Louise with a second one less than a week later at St. Moritz.
Lara Gut-Behrami secured her first podium finish of the season by finishing second in front of the home Swiss crowd at the same resort where she notched her first-ever World Cup podium and subsequent victory in 2008. Tina Weirather nabbed the final podium spot in third place 0.42 seconds off of Shiffrin's leading time.
Sadly, Mikaela Shiffrin will skip World Cup races in St. Moritz this weekend after missing training time in speed events during the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2017 Austrian Nicole Schmidhofer took Gold on the Women's Super-G during the first day of the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in St. Moritz. She swooped in to beat Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather by 0.33 seconds and Switzerland’s Lara Gut by 0.38 seconds, who ended up in second and third place, respectively. St. Moritz (SUI) December 5th Super-G/ Ladies, 11:30 am CET December 6th Super-G/ Ladies, 11:30 am CET
St. Moritz has a permanent place in the international ski racing calendar. St. Moritz has hosted five alpine ski world championships: 1934, 1948, 1974, 2003, and 2017 and two Olympic Games in 1928 and 1948 – the only ones ever held in Switzerland. St. Moritz is one of the very few exclusive locations, such as Lake Placid and Innsbruck, to have hosted the Winter Olympic Games twice. The 1928 Games were, in fact, the first-ever official Winter Olympic Games – the "test run" in Chamonix (1924) was only honored with this title much later on.
St. Moritz is more than just a holiday resort. It was also the birthplace of the Alpine winter holidays in 1864. Nevertheless, St. Moritz first became famous thanks to its mineral springs, which were discovered 3,000 years ago and established the town as a summer spa resort early on.
St. Moritz, which lies on the south side of the Alps, in the Upper Engadine Valley, at an elevation of 1,856 m, boasts plenty of sunny days. It was exactly this sun that was legally protected as the emblem of St. Moritz in 1930. St. Moritz was often ahead of the times - for example, the first electric light went on at Christmas time in 1878, the first golf tournament in the Alps took place here, in 1889 and one of the first ski lifts in Switzerland began running in 1935.
St Moritz is Switzerland's most famous exclusive winter resort: glitzy, expensive, and fashionable. Few ski destinations can claim even one five-star hotel, but this sunny Swiss lakeside resort boasts five, including the all-suites Carlton, located in Tsar Nicolai II’s former vacation house. St. Moritz Dorf in the hillside over the lake includes Via Serlas’s jet-set shopping "luxury mile", with boutiques like Emilio Pucci, Gucci, Chanel, or jewelry stores like Bucherer, Cartier or Chopard. St. Moritz Bad, at the lake’s foot, hides local gems among its shops, restaurants, and hotels.
The valley offers nine ski areas accessed with a single ski pass. Several of them are connected by lifts; the rest are connected by bus. The Engadine Ski Paradise: St. Moritz-Corviglia, Corvatsch, Diavolezza are synonymous with breathtaking and unforgettable skiing experiences. 60 modern transportation facilities open up on 350 km of snow-covered runs at altitudes from 1,800 to 3,300 meters above sea level of slopes in nine different skiing areas with 37 mountain restaurants.
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