Winning any event at the Winter Olympics requires a combination of courage, speed, and body control, but arguably nowhere is that more true than the mass start events where several racers compete side-by-side. These events often produce among the most chaos, the most drama, and the most controversy.
The penultimate mass start snow sports event will begin Friday at 6 a.m. ET (12 p.m. local), when 32 of the world’s best skiers will face off directly against one another in heats of four down a windy track filled with jumps and rollers, with the top two in each heat advancing through the bracket until the 7:10 a.m. ET (1:10 p.m. local) final.
Sandra Näslund of Sweden is a -140 favorite to take home gold at DraftKings Sportsbook. Germany’s Daniela Meyer (+270) has the next-shortest odds, and Fanny Smith (+650) of Switzerland is projected to round out the podium. No American is slated to compete.
Women’s Ski Cross prediction, pick
In ski cross, anything can happen: narrowly overshooting a jump or roller can be devastating, and with four competitors battling in every turn, skis and poles can easily get clipped. During the men’s snowboard cross, American Nathan Pare was in position for a medal before he clipped Spaniard Lucas Eguibar Breton and was disqualified, so it doesn’t matter how clean any skier is; in this lightning-quick game of inches, everything could fall apart in an instant.
Näslund is a legend of the event, having won gold in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and previously advancing to the final at Pyeongchang 2018, where she ultimately missed the podium by a spot. But after a rough 2024-25 season in which she finished just 30th in the World Cup standings after fracturing her tibia partway through, she leads the overall standings for the fifth time in her career. She’s already won five times this season.
However, she’s not untouchable, as she had a rough couple of races during the most recent Italian World Cup stop, finishing just 25th in the race on January 30 and finishing fourth the following day. That race in Val di Fassa ultimately ended up being won by Maier, which was her second victory in her last three starts. She’ll be hungry for revenge, given that she narrowly missed the podium in Beijing, but she’s ranked second on the World Cup in each of the last two seasons and has a further three runner-up finishes. She’s in better position than Smith, who has won bronze in each of the last two Olympics but hasn’t yet won a World Cup race this season.
Saskja Lack is my favorite value play. Though the 25-year-old has never won a World Cup race, she ranks sixth in the World Cup standings (making her +4000 odds excellent value), and she’s in hot form, having finished second in Val di Fassa. If the margin between her and Maier were closer — Maier won by 0.89 seconds — I might be more tempted to pick her.
In a race with as fine margins as ski cross, picking a -140 favorite doesn’t make sense, but there’s enough of a difference between Maier and anybody else that I won’t be too bold, either. Germany has had a solid Olympics, winning the fifth-most total medals, and ski cross could be an opportunity for it to pick up its sixth gold.
