Top Five Fridays: October 23, 2026
Last year, the Soelden season opener was incredibly successful for the U.S. Women’s Team as they placed 3 athletes in the top 6. With 17 year old Katie Rowekamp making her World Cup debut, a renewed focus from Mikaela Shiffrin, and an entire roster of athletes capable of making a splash, it bears asking, “can they do it again?”. Image: U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team on Facebook
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays the October 23, 2026 edition! This week, we’ve got a double-topic double-header, starting with back to back FIS World Cup announcements. First up there, is a preview of the first races of the season, going down this weekend in Soelden, Austria. From there, we’ll move on to bring you the latest news from the world of FIS broadcasting rights, where some significant progress has been made in regards to accessing replays and livestreams. Spoiler alert: North Americans will be able to watch every FIS event in North America this season.
In our second double-header, we switch gears to focus on ski resorts in small towns, as we have more updates from the growingly complicated situation in Nederland, CO, as well as a major resolution at New York’s Toggenburg Mountain, which has just announced plans to reopen in time for next winter. If you’re looking to pick up on all the ski news you need to know, then you’re in the right place - simply read on!
#1: The FIS World Cup Alpine Season is Set to Kick Off This Weekend in Soelden!:
Follow along with U.S. Ski Team athlete Paula Moltzan as she trains in Soelden ahead of this weekend’s races!
First things first this week, we’re kicking this week’s highlight reel off with a preview of this weekend’s upcoming races in Soelden! Yes, you read that right, the FIS World Cup Alpine season begins tomorrow, starting with the first women’s Giant Slalom runs of the season, scheduled for bright and early, 4 AM east coast time. In the lead up to that event, we caught quite a few stories this week highlighting not only the opening weekend races, but also the season on the whole. As such, our first topic this week is more or less a lightning round of FIS stories to help you get ready for the season ahead.
Starting with this weekend’s Giant Slalom races in Soelden, Austria, the most intriguing storyline of the season is set to have its first chapter written as Mikaela Shiffrin takes the course. Now, to clarify, it��s not the fact that Shiffrin is racing in a GS race at Soelden that’s significant, she’s done that many times before, but it’s the shift in focus for Shiffrin that makes this race particularly interesting. As you’ll recall, Mikaela announced just a couple of weeks ago that she’ll be competing in fewer Slalom races this season, turning her attention towards more Giant Slalom and Super G races. As a result, this weekend’s races will be the first under Shiffrin’s new approach. Noting that she took 4th in the event last year, that feels like a safe starting point to reference when deciding whether or not this change in focus will have an immediate impact on results this winter, or if the process of becoming an elite GS and Super G athlete will take some time. One way or another, that process starts in just two days.
Sticking with this storyline just a little longer, we also learned that Shiffrin plans to sit out for the first two Slalom races of the season, opting out of both the races in Levi, Finland and Gurgl, Austria. As such, Shiffrin will be making her Slalom debut in front of a home crowd at Killington, VT on November 29th.
Piggy backing off of this story is the ripple effect that Shiffrin’s decision will likely have on the women’s World Cup circuit this season. Once again looking back on last year, Shiffrin won the overall crystal globe with a score of 1,410 points. In second place was Emma Aicher with 1,323 points, and in third was Camille Rast with 1,151 points. Noting that Shiffrin’s Slalom record consisted of 11 wins and one second place results, it’s easy to see how her domination of the discipline shaped the overall standings. That ultimately adds quite a bit of intrigue to this season as it not only opens the door for more Slalom athletes to earn more points, but also forces Shiffrin to make up points in other disciplines. That dynamic, of other athletes having a shot at more points and Shiffrin potentially earning less, means the top of the overall standings could look quite a bit different by the end of this year. While athletes like Aicher and Rast could easily move up to claim the top spot, it also could open the door for fellow U.S. Ski Team athletes, such as Paula Moltzan who made good on her goal last season of becoming a constant podium threat.
Speaking of new opportunities for athletes, the last story we want to share is one from SkiRacing.com that highlights U.S. athlete Katie Rowekamp. This weekend, U.S. Ski Team rookie Rowekamp is set to make her World Cup debut after an absolutely meteoric rise through the junior leagues. Last year, at just 16 years old, Rowekamp completed her first year of FIS competition. In doing so, she experienced tremendous success and qualified for the U.S. Ski Team after one year. Now, at just 17 years of age, Rowekamp will be starting in her first World Cup race after earning a spot by way of winning a U.S. Ski Team time trial event. While most eyes will be on Shiffrin this weekend, there’s a very real chance that the U.S. Ski Team’s youngest alpine athlete will turn some heads as well. To learn more about Rowekamp, check out coverage of how she earned this week’s start, as well as past coverage from SkiRacing.com, chronicling her journey to the ski team.
#2: This Season, For the First Time Ever, You’ll Be Able to Watch Every FIS Alpine Race Live With Just One Subscription. Meanwhile a New FIS YouTube Channel Will Livestream Every Non-Race Event:
This season, every FIS World Cup Alpine race will be available to watch on the newly formed Ski & Snowboard World Cup YouTube channel. For non-racing events, the channel will also host livestreams.
Now that we’ve got the lay of the land for both this weekend’s event and the season ahead, it’s time for some big news: the FIS has finally simplified the process of streaming live FIS events. If you’re a regular reader of ours, then there’s simply no way you aren’t aware of the long-term battle over FIS’s media rights. If by chance you’re new here, the long and short of it is simple: for as long as we can remember, each individual country has had the ability to sell broadcasting rights to events happening in their country. A few years back, previous FIS President Johan Eliasch made it a primary goal of his to centralize the media rights so that the FIS is in control of broadcasting. Long story short, the goal was to make FIS World Cup events easier to livestream anywhere in the world, no matter where they were taking place. While we may not be there quite yet, this week brought some massive news to North America.
This season, for the first time ever, the United States and Canada will have access to livestreams of every single FIS event. That’s the headline to keep in mind. Diving in a little bit deeper, there are actually three main platforms hosting the content, each in slightly different ways. For those of you interested in watching live broadcasts of every single World Cup Alpine Race, you’ll want to make sure you have a Peacock subscription, as that will be the only place to watch international races live. That said, if replays 24 hours after the event suit you just fine, a brand new FIS Ski & Snowboard channel will be posting full replays of every race a day after it happens. Additionally, NBC and NBCSN will be broadcasting live for most major domestic events.
That’s the FIS World Cup Alpine side of things.
For every other sport - whether that’s cross country skiing, freeride, freeski, freestyle, nordic combined, ski jumping, or snowboarding, a new FIS Ski & Snowboard YouTube channel will be hosting livestreams as well as replays. In other words, if you want to watch live alpine racing regardless of where it’s happening, you’ll want a Peacock subscription. If you’re ok waiting a day to watch race replays while also being able to watch every single other discipline live, then the Ski & Snowboard YouTube channel will be just fine for you. For every other event besides racing, the YouTube channel will offer both livestreams and replays.
Overall, this is a massive step forward for the FIS as it’s truly the first time that those of us in North America will be able to watch every event live with just one subscription. Historically, it’s been a labyrinth of broadcasting partners, with viewing options varying based on which nation is hosting each race and ultimately requiring multiple subscriptions. Now, the entire process has become much simpler and American audiences can finally access full events. The hope from here of course, is that FIS sports will ultimately find a bigger audience in this part of the world. For more on this, check out the announcement from the U.S. Ski and Snowboard team.
#3: The Temperature is Rising in Nederland, CO as Residents Demand the Board of Trustees End Their Plans to Purchase Eldora:
Uncertainty over the future of Eldora continues, with Nederland locals demanding that town leaders abandon their plan to buy the ski area, while those very same leaders suggest that information they’re not allowed to disclose makes the deal a slam dunk. Image: Eldora on Facebook
Alright, let’s shift gears a bit here and get into the back half of our double-topic double-header. With FIS race coverage wrapped up, it’s time to talk about ski resort ownership in small towns, starting with continuing coverage of the “will they or won’t they” story that’s continuing to unfold in Nederland, CO.
Once again, if you’re a regular here then you undoubtedly know the story of Nederland, CO’s attempt to buy Eldora Mountain Resort. If this is your first time hearing about this, the quick version is essentially that POWDR Corp wanted to sell Eldora, the town that it’s located in (Nederland, population approximately 1,500) wanted to buy it, and the two parties wrote up a purchase agreement. Since then, Nederland has struggled to find enough parties interested in buying bonds to fund the investment and has thus begun seeking donations. Meanwhile, the purchase agreement has expired, POWDR is beginning to feel anxious about continuing to wait for Nederland, and the town itself has already sunk $2.5 million into costs associated with purchasing the ski resort. In other words, what began as a promising story for both the town and the ski industry, has begun to spiral out of control. This of course, brings us to this week’s news.
This week, a story from the Colorado Sun has informed us that the residents of Nederland are becoming restless. At a town meeting on Tuesday of this week, several residents of Nederland voiced their concerns for the ongoing project, most of which ultimately centered on the fact that the municipality is a town with a roughly $3 million annual budget, attempting to buy a $120 million resort. While there were a number of voices at the meeting, one of the loudest came from Dallas Masters, who had used AI tools to analyze the deal. Fueled by research based responses given to him by Claude, Masters argued that there was only a 5% chance that the deal would actually go through. Taking this research a step further, Masters has also published a website called EldoraRecord.org that lists all of the financial records he could find regarding the sale.
While Masters was arguably the loudest voice in the room, several other locals joined him in opposing the purchase. Amongst those dissenting, one commonly held perspective was the fact that closing this deal was incredibly complex and would take a team of seasoned professionals to complete. The Nederland board of trustees, in their opinion, was both unqualified to carry out the purchase, and lacked the ability to assess the financial risk involved. Similarly, many voiced concern that the potential purchase has become a significant distraction, resulting in the trustees neglecting other, more mundane, but important needs for the town.
Despite the town growing restless however, the board of trustees plans to continue their push forward. According to one of the trustees, Billy Giblin, the town leaders have additional information about the deal that they’re not allowed to disclose to the public, but that makes him feel confident that they will recoup their investment should the deal go through. On the other hand, abandoning the deal now would leave them responsible for the $2.5 million that they’ve already spent on resources to explore and shape the pending deal. As such, he’s reluctant to pull the plug, seemingly knowing that if the trustees can get it across the finish line, there’s some form of certainty to be had regarding the project’s financial viability.
All said and done, while this week’s story doesn’t provide significant progress, it’s another important chapter in a story that’s sure to become a case study in skiing for years to come. Should Nederland succeed in purchasing Eldora, and should it prove to be a financial windfall for the small town, it will come to be a shining example of how ski towns can reclaim financial control of their community. On the other hand, should Nederland fail to get the deal through, it will be a shining example of how a small town with big dreams got carried away, ultimately falling into a financial pitfall, a la Parks and Rec’s Ben Wyatt. For that reason, recognizing that the outcome of this story is likely to fall firmly on one side or the other, we find our continuing coverage to be worthwhile. To learn more, check out the latest report from the Colorado Sun.
#4: New York’s Toggenburg Mountain, Shuttered Since 2021 & Caught in Legal Turmoil Ever Since, Has Just Found a New Owner With Plans to Reopen Next Season:
Finally, for our last highlight this week, we’re sharing a story that hits close to home for me (Matt) as it’s centered around the ski resort where my love for skiing really took hold as a teenager. That resort is Toggenburg Mountain in Fabius, New York. During my teenage years, Toggenburg was a bit of a second home for me. Between night skiing 5 days a week and having a tight enough relationship with the groomers that we were able to ride along with them to build the terrain parks a few times a year, Toggenburg was the type of place a kid could walk into, know half the lodge, and form instant lifelong friendships. In the many, many years since then, I’ve come to learn that there are endless community ski areas just like Toggenburg, but to me at the time, it was the best ski area in the world.
All of this is to say that when the small ski area kingpin of Central New York, Peter Harris, bought the ski area in 2021 and immediately shut it down, I along with the entire central New York ski community felt deeply wronged. Afterall, Peter Harris wasn’t just a random business owner - he was also the owner of the other two ski areas serving the greater Syracuse region. As such, it was clear as day that Harris had bought the resort intentionally to shut it down and eliminate his competition. Now, if that sounds illegal to you, that’s because it was. In April of 2025, we shared the news that the State of New York had found Peter Harris guilty of violating antitrust laws, the outcome of which was that Harris would be forced to sell the ski area. Then, in August of last year, we learned that Peter Harris had sent a sales offer for $1.75 million to local business man Douglas Wheeler. This week, it finally happened: the purchase was completed, with Douglas Wheeler and family becoming the new owners of Toggenburg.
Now, roughly 5 years after Toggenburg was unexpectedly shuttered, plans to reopen the resort have been announced. Should all go to plan, Doug Wheeler and crew expect to have the ski area open for business in time for the 2027-2028 season. That said, they have a ton of work ahead of them before that’s possible. In an interview with Storm Skiing this week, Wheeler outlines the status of the property, detailing the state of the buildings, plumbing, chairlifts, groomers, and more. Long story short, under Harris’s roughly 5 years of ownership, big ticket items like snowcats were sold off while the chairlifts themselves were dismantled. As it stands, Wheeler believes he still has all of the individual chairs, but the lift cables have been cut, meaning he’ll need to order new ones. The good news though, is that much of the infrastructure appears to be in decent shape. While the lodges and kitchens will require some remodeling, they’re structurally sound and the snowmaking pipelines are believed to be in good shape. While there is much work to do in the year ahead and the timeline is certainly subject to change, the one thing we do know for sure is that Toggenburg appears to be in good hands moving forward, and a reopening of the resort seems all but certain. For more on this, check out the interview with Storm Skiing.
#5: And Now, Your Edits of the Week: You Know Winter is Near When Nikolai Schirmer Starts Releasing Edits Again:
Wonder What it Took for Phil Casabon to Film His Street Segment in Armada’s “Ornada”? Watch “Try Angle”, a BTS Style Companion Film:
If the Freeride Brand of SLVSH is Your Thing, You’ll Want to Watch the Latest Episode, Featuring Wyatt Gentry and Nate Pruzan:
“Chasing a Snowstorm in Italy | A White Christmas” Feels Like a Season Edit You Might Make With Your Friend - If You and Your Friends Were Shockingly Good at Filming and Editing:
*** Some language by way of the narrator and/or cast of characters. ***