A Rare Stumble Off the Snow: Marco Odermatt's Bid for a Sixth Straight Overall Title Opens With an Injury Scare

Marco Odermatt's preparations for the 2026-27 World Cup season have hit an unexpected setback less than two months before it is due to begin. The 28-year-old Swiss superstar will not travel to Chile with the Swiss-Ski team on Monday, Aug. 31, after experiencing pain during an athletic training session earlier in the week. Subsequent examinations at Zurich's Hirslanden Clinic revealed what Swiss-Ski described as a "minor muscle injury," the federation said in a statement released Saturday, Aug. 29.

Swiss-Ski has not disclosed which muscle is affected or offered a specific timetable for Odermatt's return to snow. The federation said the immediate priority is treatment and rehabilitation, with the rest of his preseason schedule to be reassessed once he is cleared to train again. "As soon as training on snow is possible again, the further season preparation will be rescheduled," the federation said, without committing to a date.

An Unusual Start for Skiing's Dominant Force

The injury is a rare disruption for a skier who has become the sport's benchmark of consistency. Odermatt enters the new season chasing a sixth consecutive overall World Cup title, having won every edition since 2022 — a run that puts him alongside the most dominant stretches in the sport's history. Across 11 World Cup seasons he has amassed 54 race wins and 102 podium finishes spanning giant slalom, super-G and downhill, and he arrives off the back of a 2026 campaign that included two silver medals and a bronze at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, to go with the giant slalom gold he won four years earlier in Beijing.

Fellow racers on the circuit have repeatedly pointed to Odermatt's athleticism and consistency as what separates him from the field. Norwegian skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who has dealt with his own lengthy injury absences in recent years, has credited Odermatt's intensity and willingness to push limits as central to his sustained success, while American racer Bryce Bennett has called him a generational talent for how reliably he performs week to week.

Swiss-Ski acknowledged the awkward timing of the setback, noting that it arrives just as the team's most important overseas training block gets underway. Still, officials stressed there is no indication at this stage that Odermatt will miss the World Cup season opener. The 2026-27 men's calendar begins with the traditional giant slalom in Sölden, Austria, on Oct. 25 — giving Odermatt nearly two months to recover before a competitive result is at stake.

Why Chile, and Why It Matters

The Chile trip Odermatt will miss is part of a now-standard summer ritual for World Cup ski teams. With European glaciers increasingly unreliable for on-snow training in July and August — several remained closed this summer amid warm conditions — national federations have shifted much of their preseason work to the Southern Hemisphere, where winter is in full swing. Swiss, Austrian, German and French speed squads, along with athletes such as Mikaela Shiffrin and Kilde, have all based parts of their summer training at Andean resorts including La Parva, Portillo, El Colorado and Valle Nevado in Chile, alongside additional camps in Argentina and New Zealand. Swiss team coach Matteo Joris said earlier this month that the shrinking window for glacier skiing in the Alps has made the move all but necessary, framing it as a simple matter of adaptation to changing conditions.

Until now, Odermatt had been training closer to home, working on the Theodul Glacier above Zermatt — one of the few Alpine glaciers that has stayed open to Swiss national team skiers this summer under an agreement between Zermatt Bergbahnen AG and Swiss-Ski, with racers shuttled to the top by snowmobile rather than the usual T-bars. That option now gives way to a wait-and-see period as Odermatt undergoes treatment, with his participation in the Chile camp — and any camps that might follow it before Sölden — dependent on how quickly the injury resolves.

For a skier who has rarely missed a step in half a decade at the top of his sport, the coming weeks amount to an uncharacteristic test of patience before the real racing even begins.

Swiss-Ski has said it will provide updates on Odermatt's recovery as his preseason schedule is reassessed.