Slovakia's Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhova will seek to add to her five wins on the slopes of Levi in Finland this weekend as the women's FIS Alpine Ski World Cup gets belatedly underway ©Getty Images

The Women's Alpine Ski World Cup season is due to belatedly get underway in Levi this weekend after a series of cancellations and postponements in October; with two slalom races bringing together perennial winners on these slopes, Petra Vlhová and Mikaela Shiffrin.

The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) has had to cancel seven out of its first eight scheduled Alpine Ski World Cup races due to unseasonably warm weather, but the storage of almost 60,000 cubic metres of snow on the Levi Black ski slope in the spring has enabled the course to be finished in top condition, as confirmed by officials.

Located 110 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Levi is an early-calendar favourite having been on the programme since 2004.

Winners on the Levi Black are gifted "ownership" of a Lapland reindeer - and it is the reigning Olympic and World Cup slalom champion Vlhová of Slovakia who currently commands the biggest herd, with a record five victories.

Last season and the season before, Vlhová won both races in Levi, building on her first win there in 2017.

Overall women's Alpine Ski World Cup champion Mikaela Shiffrin will seek a fourth win in Levi as this year's event makes a belated start - but her rival Petra Vlhova has won five times...©Getty Images
Overall women's Alpine Ski World Cup champion Mikaela Shiffrin will seek a fourth win in Levi as this year's event makes a belated start - but her rival Petra Vlhova has won five times...©Getty Images

The Slovak is currently training at Levi and plans to visit her winning reindeer on her break day.

Shiffrin, who won the 2014 Olympic slalom title and the 2018 giant slalom title, missed out on the podium at this year's Beijing 2022 Winter Games but finished as overall Women's World Cup champion.

The 27-year-old American, who finished runner-up to Vlhová both times in Levi last time round, will be keen to get back into her winning groove on the Levi slopes, where she has already won four times.

Between them the two skiers have won every Women's World Cup slalom race on this course since 2015.

Katharina Liensberger of Austria and Andreja Slokar of Slovenia were the only slalom winners other than Vlhova and Shiffrin last season, but while the former will be a strong contender, the Slovenian is out due to a ruptured cruciate ligament.

Switzerland's Wendy Holdener is always a threat in this discipline, and at this venue, too but she has still never won a World Cup slalom gold medal.