Three men go into the World Cup Alpine skiing season with legitimate claims to alpha status, a little more than one year after the longtime dominant Marcel Hirscher retired.
Norwegians Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Henrik Kristoffersen and Frenchman Alexis Pinturault are all on the start list for Sunday’s giant slalom in Soelden, Austria, the first of a scheduled 38 individual races through March. The coronavirus pandemic, plus the usual weather variables, will determine how many of those 38 races happen.
Kilde, the latest of Norway’s Attacking Vikings, won last season’s overall title, the biggest annual prize in ski racing, in anticlimactic fashion.