Orion Cardona Coll won the sprint race during the second 2025-26 Ski Mountaineering World Cup event in Courchevel, while Rémi Bonnet conquered the vertical event. Nikita Filippov scored his first-ever World Cup podium on Thursday and Cardona Coll stood on the vertical race podium for the first time in his career.
by Maciej Jackiewicz
Thursday – Sprint race
The first Ski Mountaineering World Cup race of 2026 was the sprint, which took place on the course just next to the famous ski jumping hills. Just after the start and classical diamond section, the skiers had to run uphill to the first transition zone, where they took off their skis and run up the 65 very steep stairs, before putting on the skis again to climb further up. Then, in the last transition zone they took off their skins and concluded the run with a downhill. The qualifying that took place before the main competition did not see a lot of surprises, but the one that happened was Robin Bussard, who finished the time trial in only 40th position.
The heats, also called the quarterfinals, began and from the very beginning they were full of emotions. The first heat saw a very good battle between two Spaniards Marc Ràdua Ivern and Iñigo Martinez de Albornoz, with the latter one nearly falling on the downhill part and ultimately finishing third. Despite that, both of the Spanish guys qualified for the semifinals with Martinez de Albornoz doing it as a lucky loser. The next heat saw Nikita Filippov win it ahead of Thibault Anselmet, which was a big surprise but did not matter a lot as both of them safely qualified for the next part of the competition. By far the most interesting heat was the fifth one, as it was the highest-level one and three very talented skiers qualified from it – Maximilien Drion du Chapois, Jon Kistler and Thomas Bussard.
The semifinals are the stage when everything starts to matter the most. The first one was started off very strongly by Nikita Filippov, but just after the diamonds he was overtaken for the lead by Arno Lietha. Then, the Authorised Neutral Athlete was engaged in a battle between him, Cardona Coll, Thibault Anselmet, and Lietha as well later on. It was the Spaniard who won this semifinal, but all four athletes qualified for the final. The level in the second semifinal was significantly worse, but it does not mean the level was bad. From the start Jon Kistler pulled out ahead, but behind him there was a fierce battle between Maximilien Drion du Chapois and Pablo Giner Dalmasso. Coming into the downhill, the two athletes were side by side, but a massive mistake from the Frenchman cost him a place in the final, allowing the Belgian to compete.
The final featured six skiers from five countries. Again, it was Nikita Filippov who started off the strongest, but again he was caught up by Cardona Coll come the stairs section. There, Spaniard really showed his strength and created a big gap between him and the chasing athletes, with the only one that was somewhat close to keeping up with the Spanish skier being Thibault Anselmet. All hopes from catching up Cardona Coll died out though with him executing an incredible transition just after the stairs, which all in all led to him winning the sprint. Behind him, Anselmet was classified in second and Filippov finished in third – the first-ever podium for the Kamchatka-native.
After winning in Solitude and finishing fifth in Courchevel, Jon Kistler stays in the lead of the sprint World Cup classification, with Arno Lietha three points behind in second. Third is Maximilien Drion du Chapois, who finished sixth in the sprint after completely losing strength and stopping after the stairs. Cardona Coll did not start in the United States, but his 100 points from the win already put him in seventh, just 66 points behind Kistler.
Friday – Vertical race
Friday in Courchevel saw the non-televised, non-Olympic vertical race. 86 skiers took on the first vertical event of this season. It took place on the Courchevel course, that had 520 metres of vertical gain. Not surprisingly, it was the vertical dominator Rémi Bonnet who won with over a minute of advantage over Aurélien Gay in second. In third, just four seconds behind Gay, we saw Orion Cardona Coll – the winner from the sprint, for whom it was the first podium in the vertical category. Just outside of it, we saw Paul Verbnjak of Austria and Samuel Equy of France – both of them being known for their great vertical race performances.
Results
| Session | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Full results |
| Sprint | Orion Cardona Coll, 2:41.6 | Thibault Anselmet, +3.7s | Nikita Filippov, +4.6s | Here |
| Vertical | Rémi Bonnet, 20:02.5 | Aurélien Gay, +1:06.4s | Orion Cardona Coll, +1:10.4s | Here |
What’s next?
After an extremely interesting two days with skimo in Courchevel, the World Cup circus heads to the Iberian Peninsula. On 24–25 January the ski mountaineers will compete in Andorra, respectively in the vertical and sprint races. Then, on 31 January they will cross the border into Catalonia, where Boí Taüll will host a sprint race, in which the Spanish fans will really cross their fingers for the Courchevel sprint winner Orion Cardona Coll.
Header photo credit: ISMF
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