You can watch all of the below fixtures from the FIS Alpine World Cup for men and women live on your PC with Eurosport player.

Eurosport columnist Kristian Ghedina, a winner of 13 World Cup races in his illustrious career, looks ahead to the season as the racers head to North America this weekend for the first downhill of the campaign.

Austria’s Reinfried Herbst produced a fine second run to win the men’s World Cup alpine skiing slalom in Levi.

Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic was second and France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange was third.

Herbst, 31, was fourth after the first run on a course designed by his coach, but found the speed to upstage his rivals and win the sixth slalom of his career in a combined time of one minute and 49.79 seconds.

Kostelic was 0.28s behind Herbst with Grange, the winner on the same slope a year ago, 0.53s down.

The alpine skiing World Cup circuit opens today at the Austrian resort of Soelden with American star Lindsey Vonn leading a host of skiers with one eye firmly set on Olympic glory.

The 2010 Winter Games fall in February 12–28, bissecting the season which sees the women race 34 competitions and the men 35 in 25 resorts in Europe and North America.

“From the first race in Soelden to the end of the selection period in January it’ll be impossible to ignore qualifying for the Games,” acknowledged Swiss men’s head coach Martin Rufener.

It is all systems go for the opening World Cup event in Soelden following a positive weather bulletin.

Concerns were raised as a fortnight ago there was a significant snowless gap from the bottom part of the glacier to the finish area.

However, a cold front brought significant snowfall at the right time and the FIS have issued a positive bulletin.

In many places, the dry cold snow was additionally watered by hand so that we can prepare a compact and even base for all athletes,” said Hans Pieren, FIS race director for the men’s technical events.

Saturday 24th October 8.45am Women’s Giant Slalom 1st Run LIVE on your PC via the Eurosport Player — click below to subscribe.

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Twice World Cup overall champion Bode Miller has announced his return to the United States ski team in one last bid for Olympic gold.

Miller, who after a falling-out with the US team split from the programme following the 2007 World Cup season to start his own team, said he was excited to be back and would try to get a spot on the 2010 Vancouver Olympic squad.

“I’ve had some great seasons. I’ve had some great runs here and there but I’ve never… in hindsight looked back at a season and said, ‘Wow, I really did all the stuff I could do’,” Miller said.

With just 2 months to the first Alpine World Cup races in Solden, Austria and less than 6 months to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver /Whistler. National Alpine Teams from around the world are stepping up their training sessions in preparation for the upcoming season.

Bode Miller has denied reports that he will definitely compete in the upcoming season’s World Cup. Rainer Salzgeber — director of Miller’s Head team — had been quoted saying that his number one skier had already committed to the 2009/10 campaign.