Latvia's Dženifera Ģērmane opens World Cup season in Levi aiming to beat her sixth place

Dženifera Ģērmane starts the new Alpine Skiing World Cup season in Levi, Finland, on Saturday, 14 November. The first run of the women's slalom starts at 11:00 Riga time and the second at 14:00. The men race on the same slope on Sunday.

Aiming higher than sixth

Ģērmane has made the top 10 at World Cup races several times, and last season she finished sixth in Sweden, Latvia's best alpine skiing result since independence was restored. “It would be great to get on the podium, to take one of the steps, but overall to improve on my previous results. To get past that sixth place this time,” she told Latvian Television. She avoided bold predictions: “If my summer went well, maybe other people's did too. Everyone meets at the first race, and then you see.”

Her top-15 finish in last season's overall World Cup standings brings support for travel and accommodation on race days and a better start number. “It is a big advantage, especially when the snow is in worse condition,” she said.

Summer in Chile, a slalom field without Shiffrin

Europe's glaciers melted heavily over the summer, ruling out snow training there, so Ģērmane did a lot of cycling and travelled to Chile to ski. Levi has no natural snow yet either; organisers are using snow stored from last winter. During the season she will be part of an international team and will share a ski technician with a skier from Andorra.

Ģērmane will still focus on slalom but could also race giant slalom when the calendar allows. American Mikaela Shiffrin, who has 73 World Cup slalom wins, will put more emphasis on giant slalom and super-G this season, and Ģērmane expects that to motivate the other slalom specialists, LSM, the Latvian public broadcaster, reported.