Aicher and Colturi share a flight to Levi just two days before the slalom in Lapland, with both among the leading favorites

Two days before Levi, or at least the women’s slalom scheduled for Saturday (1st run at 10:00 a.m. Italian time, 11:00 a.m. local time, with the 2nd run from 1:00 p.m.), with many national teams already in the resort beyond the Arctic Circle for at least a couple of days, some arriving from Sweden (Kabdalis and Storklinten are the best training venues) and others directly from Italy, as in the case of the Italian women’s team, which has been on Finnish snow since Tuesday.

On Friday morning, the teams will ski on the “Levi Black”, which is in optimal condition after temperatures plunged (to below -10°C in some cases) right from the start of this week. Then, at 6:00 p.m. (Italian time), the bib draw will be held for Saturday’s women’s race (the same time on Saturday has been set for the public meeting with the athletes ranked in the men’s world top 15 ahead of Sunday’s race).

While many teams chose to arrive in Levi a few days early, with several still training on glaciers given the various options available in the Alps this year, Emma Aicher and Lara Colturi have opted to fly north only today after their training days in Gurgl, the venue for the next World Cup slalom.

Thanks to their common sponsor, Red Bull, the Bavarian and the Piedmontese skier (both ambassadors for Val di Fassa) took advantage of this opportunity, making a very deliberate choice: Emma and Lara, who are also close friends (the former turns 23 tomorrow, while the latter will turn 20 on Sunday), are precisely the two skiers who completed last year’s podium some distance behind Mikaela Shiffrin, the major absentee from Saturday’s race.

After scoring her first giant slalom top-three finish in Soelden, Aicher will be seeking her first slalom victory, while Colturi will be chasing her first-ever World Cup win after placing eighth on the Rettenbach, finishing second just one hundredth of a second behind Paula Moltzan.