Sofia can win Overall title

    Sofia Goggia has a chance, IMO her best ever, to win the WAWC Overall title. With Fede and Lara out, and Mikaela focusing on Tech, Sofia is the most prominent 3+-discipline competitor. It would be a season “for the ages.”

   Pulling it off hinges upon three things: stamina and Giant Slalom results; Shiffrin’s Super G points. Sofia can control her own affairs, not Mikaela’s. And she cannot control luck. But luck runs good or bad, for anyone—luck is a null factor until it’s suddenly the sum.

    Except for Petra Vlhova’s 2019 EOS Overall 2^nd, since 2010 no two-discipline racer has EOS better than 4^th. Unless you run the Tech or Speed table, Overall title is out of reach. (Hmm, who can run the Tech table…?)

    A quick look at Sofia’s 2025-26 principal multi-discipline competition, in descending order on last season’s Overall ranking:

    Alice Robinson – GS elite; SG okay; DH a long way off. We’ll see if she pushes the long boards. Magical GS on-form. I so hope she nails at least one more discipline.

    Kajsa Lie – Speed elite; GS meh, but an improvement project she seems to be serious about. Kajsa will make Big Person status by December 2027. A star.

    Emma Aicher – Speed solid; GS way off so far (odd, IMO); SL coming along. Enormous talent/potential. Should have an Overall title within two seasons after HH hangs 'em up.

    Mikaela Shiffrin – Tech Deity; SG TBD, probably a few starts. (She’s won an SG season title.) Another few seasons, I reckon. Tuck away a couple more Worlds medals in 2027; retire spring 2028 with >130 victories. Then into Civilian Stratosphere.

    Lauren Macuga – Budding Speed elite; GS, has run just one on WAWC level. 15^th. Didn’t race Soelden this year; not sure if she’s onboard. If so and has chops, on track for Big Person.

    Excepting massive improvement in weakest disciplines, only Shiffrin exceeds Goggia’s points potential this season. (Aicher has a outside shot at making it interesting.)

    Can Sofia win this season’s Overall title? It’s gonna be really tough.

    We’ll assume a superb Tech campaign for Mikaela. Judging from the first two Slalom races, my Pre-season call for her to win five of ten SLs (and podium the rest) may be conservative. She’s in TOP form—physically obviously, and emotionally AFAICT from her public attitude. Total confidence. For the sake of this exercise, I’ll give her 7 wins, 2 seconds, and a 3d. Compared to her bonkers 2019 EOS Slalom—8 wins and a 2^nd from nine races—this is indeed conservative.

    920 pts Slalom

    Ten Giant Slalom races are scheduled this season. In 2023, her most recent GS title, Shiffrin won 7 of 10, with 2x6th and an off-kilter 13^th. I’ll give her 5 wins this year, 3 podiums, and 2xT5. This again is conservative, but her GS competition is stiffer/deeper than SL. Robinson, Scheib, Hector, and Moltzan in particular can run with Her Highness.

    800 approx pts Giant Slalom

    1720 Overall points from Tech right off the bat, conservative estimate. Whew.

    Mikaela's Super G plans are nebulous—she’s said she may run a few tracks she’s comfortable on. But Tech is this season’s focus: both Discipline titles and golds at Cortina. I’ll throw in an average 7^th place finish in three SGs for the heck of it, another 108 points.

    1830 points, approximately, are what HH should expect from an excellent season by her standards. For anyone else currently racing, this is lights out. Since 2010, the Overall title was taken with 1700+ points seven times—Reisch, Vonn, Maze (2414 in 2013; World Cup record), Shiffrin (3 times), and Gut-Behrami. 1500 or less often got it done. (Shiffrin has twice scored over 2200, with second place about 1000 points behind.)

    Sofia Goggia’s top EOS Overall points total is 1197, in 2018, when she finished 3d Overall.

    Points breakdown by discipline: DH 460 (2^nd); SG 240 (6th); GS 405 (3^d); Alpine Combined 92 (8^th—discontinued after 2020; Parallel events also dropped after 2020-22 experiment.)

DH – 8 races. 1st, 4 podiums, 5^th, 12^th, 18^th.

SG – 7 races. 1^st, 2^nd, 3d, 4xDNF.

GS – 9 races. 4 podiums, 2xT10, 11^th, 2xDNF

    A good but very uneven season by Sofia’s standards, and for anyone’s in the top rank. So we can’t project winning an Overall title on this. Let's consider her best seasonal discipline scores. The strongest are more recent as well.

    2023 DH (1^st) 740 pts. 9 races – 5x1st, 3x2nd, DNF. Excepting the DNF, this is off the fucking scope for Downhill. Since 2015, the DH title has been won with more than 500 points six times: Vonn (twice), Stuhec, and Goggia (3 times including 2023). Except for Sofia in 2023, no winner scored 600 points—though Ilka hit 597 in 2017. (Vonn’s 2011-2012 DH 650+ points with 725 in 2010 is one of ski racing’s greatest title runs.)

    Nine Downhills are scheduled for 2025-26. Realistically, 700 points will be tough to achieve, but Sofia must to compete for Overall. This means averaging 2^nd place (80 pts per race) in the discipline. She’s capable of another great DH season, I’m sure.

    2025 SG (3d) 466 pts. 9 races – 1^st, 2x2nd, 2x3d, 4^th, 7^th, 19^th, DNF. Two excruciating results sullied an outstanding campaign.

    Eight Super Gs are scheduled for this season. Coming off her career best, Sofia’s primed to add 200 points to that SG total, which she’ll need to do. Transform the lowest three results so: DNF to a 6^th (40 pts); 19^th to a 3d (60 pts); 7^th to a win (100 pts). Drop the 4^th 50pts to make eight results. We’ll round this speculative total to 615.

    So Goggia has 1315 Speed points, one way or the other. With no finishes beneath 6^th, and with NO DNFs. Tough lift, but required to give the sport’s Deity a run for her money.

    2017 GS (3d) 405 pts. 9 races – 3x2nd, 3d, 5^th, 7^th, 11^th, 2xDNF. EOS 3d pretty good with this record. Tessa Worley and MS were on fire—1285 pts between them, Tessa taking title with 685.

    Ten Giant Slaloms are scheduled this season. As Goggia’s GS apogee was a while ago, reckoning improvement on 2017 is fraught. But if she manages 400 points this year, she’s right there with Her Highness’s Tech haul: 1715 to 1720.   

    Except for the DNFs and 11^th, 2017 wasn’t too shabby. 100 additional points easily achieved by spiffing up those three results. But we need to look at recent GS history to see if 500 GS points are feasible. She’ll need them.

    Sofia ran just six of nine Giant Slaloms last season, skipping the three openers. Probably to focus on Speed. She finished three—4^th, 5^th, and 13^th. So-so. In 2024 she ran seven of the first eight GS, foregoing the final two I assume to preserve strength for the Speed campaign’s closure. 5^th was her best finish, with 4xT10, 12^th, and 16^th. 205 pts for EOS 14^th.

    Soelden this October was a bummer—hooked a gate with her hand, down pretty hard, but up quickly looking no worse for wear. So…if Goggia’s gonna drive for the Overall, she needs to finish the remaining nine GS and average a 4^th place finish, to cop 450 points. 

    That puts her at 1765 points. 586 more than she’s ever scored. Not a single DNF; probably no finish worse than, say, a 7^th? Twenty-seven races. Every weekend, except for the Olympics—for which Sofia will be doppio carico per l'orso.

    This may decide the matter: does Sofia Goggia have the stamina to compete every weekend on the World Cup circuit, expend enormous energy—physical and emotional—to excel at her home Olympics, and then grind for another month? With Fede and Marta out, she is Italy’s unica grande persona. I’ll venture no athlete at Cortina—even Shiffrin needing to put Beijing behind for good—will be under a brighter spotlight than Sofia. Five years ago, I’d say she could pull it off. Now, especially considering how much work her GS will need, I must say it’s a very long shot.

    I think Sofia’s goal is another DH title, strong SG as she’s feeling it, and Olympic DH gold. We’ll see if she’s at Copper this weekend for GS. (I’ll be there. My first WAWC race! Stoked.)

    Also bear in mind: now that LG-B is out and the Overall is within relatively easy reach, Mikaela will definitely run copacetic Super Gs if needed to augment Tech points and salt away the title. Especially post-Olympics, when injury caution may ease a touch.

    In any event, if Sofia Goggia hammers out twenty-seven starts and makes a strong run for the big globe, win or lose her legacy's a touch more glorious.