Mikaela Shiffrin to race fewer slaloms in 'exploration season'

American skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin plans to race fewer slaloms and focus on giant slalom and super-G events when the World Cup season starts later this month. 'We're calling it the exploration season,' she said on her YouTube channel on Tuesday. 'It's an opportunity to maybe shift focus a little bit. I've been doing this for 16 years, and my focus has more or less remained very stable. It's always been around slalom, GS, with some bits of speed here and there. 'My overall focus has always just been to become a faster ski racer, to be a better ski racer, to push my limits within the sport. That part is not changing. I want to give myself a little bit more freedom to ask where I feel curious and to sort of follow that itch a little bit. What are the things that really, really inspire me to lock in? That's the question I'm asking.' Shiffrin, 31, is expected to compete in the giant slalom during the first event of the Alpine season on Oct. 24 in Solden, Austria. Instead of competing in the slaloms at Levi, Finland, and Gurgl, Austria, in November, Shiffrin will skip those events and race her first slalom of the season on Nov. 29 at Killington, Vt. There are 10 slaloms total on the World Cup schedule this season. Shiffrin has won a record 110 World Cup races, including 73 slaloms. Two of her three Olympic gold medals were in the slalom, in 2014 and 2026. 'After this Olympic season and this Olympic cycle, I've been kind of reflecting, asking questions that are a little bit different than I typically ask myself, and it's been centered around what parts of this sport I want to be chasing,' she said. 'Not what I should be chasing. Not what makes sense on paper.' Shiffrin has won 22 World Cup giant slalom races as well as an Olympic gold medal in 2018. She also has five World Cup wins in super-G, most recently in 2022. She won four world championships in slalom (2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019), one in giant slalom (2023) and one in super-G (2019). 'I don't want people to hear that I'm done with slalom,' she said. 'That's not what I'm saying, and I don't want people to hear that slalom isn't challenging anymore because I'm definitely not saying that. I don't want people to get from this (that) she's stepping back, because that's not how this feels to me at all. If anything, I've had a little bit more of an intense prep season than I've ever had before. 'I'm changing the question. Instead of asking how much can I possibly fit into this upcoming season, I'm asking what happens if I give myself enough space to explore the things that I'm the most curious about. I don't actually know the answer, so that's kind of the point.' Shiffrin added that she could always go back to a slalom-heavy schedule if she ends up missing it. 'I'm trying something new here, and it's different, and it is a little scary,' she said. 'It's pretty uncomfortable, and it's also very, very exciting, and all of those things can exist at the same time.'