2019–20 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup

The International Ski Federation (FIS) Alpine Ski World Cup is the premier circuit for alpine skiing competition. The inaugural season launched in January 1967, and the 2019–20 season marks the 54th consecutive year for the FIS World Cup.[1][2] As it has every year since 2006 (when the Sölden races were cancelled by a snowstorm), the season began in Sölden, Austria in October. The season was supposed to end with the World Cup finals in March, which were to be held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy for the first time since they began in 1993, but the finals were cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak in Italy.[3]

2019–20 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup
Discipline	Men	Women
Overall	Aleksander Aamodt Kilde	Federica Brignone
Downhill	Beat Feuz	Corinne Suter
Super-G	Mauro Caviezel	Corinne Suter
Giant Slalom	Henrik Kristoffersen	Federica Brignone
Slalom	Henrik Kristoffersen	Petra Vlhová
Alpine Combined	Alexis Pinturault	Federica Brignone
Parallel	Loïc Meillard	Petra Vlhová
Nations Cup	Switzerland	Italy
Nations Cup Overall	Switzerland
Competition
Locations	20 venues	17 venues
Individual	36 events	30 events
Mixed	0 event	0 event
Cancelled	12 events	16 events
Rescheduled	4 events	5 events

Overall Champions

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde became the first Norwegian to win an overall World Cup title since Aksel Lund Svindal in 2008–09.

Federica Brignone became the first Italian to win an overall World Cup title since Alberto Tomba in 1994–95.

As part of an effort to control the expansion of the World Cup circuit while fighting increased specialization, the city events have been dropped this season, to be replaced by more parallel events at regular venues, while the Alpine combined has been expanded.[4] Due to the recent dominance of slalom specialists in the Alpine combined races, the format for that discipline will be changed this season. As is currently the case, the first run will be the speed discipline (with Super-G having the preference over downhill). However, instead of the slalom run starting in reverse order of finish in the speed run, which has allowed the slalom specialists (who tend to be slower in the speed run) to tackle fresh snow for their run, while the speed specialists have to face the rutted snow at the end of the day, the skiers in the slalom run will now start in the same order as they finished the speed run.[5]

Parallel format will also be changed to make the race more TV-friendly. Parallel races will now begin with one classic qualification run with a single competitor on the slope (which will not be shown in the live TV broadcast), after which the top 32 qualifiers by time will advance to the elimination phase of the main competition. The round of 32 will use the current run and re-run format, so that each competitor gets to start from each side, but from the round of 16 forward, there will be only one run per race and a direct knockout system.[6]. However, the new format immediately became controversial, as making two giant slalom courses equal in a single-run format proved impossible, and both the first men's and women's parallel giant slalom races suffered from "the luck of the draw" becoming determinative -- in the men's race, all eight round-of-16 matches were won by the racer on the same randomly-selected course, and in the women's race, 17 of 20 winners came from the same course.[7][8]

In addition, a new sixth discipline—parallel events (which will join parallel giant slalom and parallel slalom in points distribution)—will be introduced. A small crystal globe will be awarded to the winner.[9]

On 1 February 2020, then-women's World Cup overall leader (and 3-time defending champion) Mikaela Shiffrin's father Jeff suffered grave injuries in an accident, and Shiffrin immediately left the World Cup tour. His injuries proved fatal, and Shiffrin remained off the tour for the rest of the season.[10]