SPINDLERUV MLYN, Czech Republic — Mikaela Shiffrin is back on a World Cup giant slalom podium after two years.
And she could have hardly picked a better moment to do so.
The American star finished third Saturday in the last GS before the Milan Cortina Olympics.
“It’s been two years since I was on the podium in GS, and more than one year since I believed I could be on the podium in GS. It’s amazing for me,” Shiffrin said.
The race was won by defending Olympic champion Sara Hector, who held on to her opening run lead for her first victory since January 2025.
“You always have to keep working, it’s so many strong girls as you can see today,” the Swedish winner said in a course-side interview. “I am super happy that in the end I crossed the finish line first. That’s a really cool feeling.”
Shiffrin, the 2018 Olympic GS gold medallist, trailed Hector by 0.23 seconds and the American shared the podium with second-placed teammate Paula Moltzan, who was 0.18 off the pace and led a strong showing by the U.S. team, with Nina O’Brien in fifth and AJ Hurt in eighth.
Shiffrin holds the women’s record for most career World Cup GS wins with 22 but hadn’t had a top-three result in the discipline in 11 events since coming runner-up at a race in Slovakia in January 2024.
Six days later, she crashed in a downhill on the course that will be used for the Olympics next month and then didn’t compete in GS again until the start of the 2024-25 season.
In November 2024, she sustained a puncture wound to the right side of her abdomen and severe damage to her oblique abdominal muscles in a crash at her home GS in Killington, Vt., and subsequently suffered from lingering post-traumatic stress disorder.
This season, Shiffrin racked up three fourth places before ultimately returning to the podium Saturday, three weeks before the Olympic race in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Racing again at the Czech venue of her World Cup debut as a 15-year old in March 2011, Shiffrin called it “a pretty special day” to share a GS podium with Moltzan for the first time.
“To find the balance between this team spirit and the individual competitive spirit is really hard. I feel like the way our team is working right now, we are doing that,” Shiffrin said.
Moltzan, who’s chasing her maiden career win, got her third podium of the season.
“You’re always wondering whether it’s going to happen, but I’m patient and I’ll keep waiting,” she said. “But it’s also just really inspiring that this is where the level of my GS skiing is going into the Olympics.”
In the opening run, Hector edged out Camille Rast of Switzerland by 0.02 seconds, with GS rankings leader Julia Scheib of Austria 0.26 back in third.
Rast dropped to fourth, while Scheib skied out in the final run.
Overall World Cup champion Federica Brignone, who made a strong return to racing from a nine-month injury layoff on Tuesday, and her Italian teammate Sofia Goggia, the 2018 Olympic downhill champion, sat out the event in Czechia, with a weekend of speed racing coming up in Switzerland next week ahead of their home Olympics.
A slalom on the same hill is scheduled for Sunday.
LAS VEGAS — Beginning a new era under a $7.7-billion American broadcast partnership with Paramount+, the UFC did everything it could to make its first numbered event of 2026 as stacked as possible.
Spanish star Ilia Topuria was originally meant to defend his lightweight belt prior to taking a hiatus from the sport to address personal matters. Then, welterweight champion and consensus pound-for-pound king Islam Makhachev was asked to compete, but turned it down due to timing.
One of the biggest women’s fights in history — all-time great Amanda Nunes vs. current bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison — was booked before it fell through last week. And legendary Glory kickboxing heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven was targeted for a UFC debut, according to the man who would have fought him, Derrick Lewis.
It says something about this card’s depth that, despite all the above, there are still four former UFC title holders competing Saturday. Plus, a litany of compelling, high-stakes undercard matchups that stand to make sizable impacts on a variety of divisions.
Here’s a closer look at five of those fights as UFC 324 builds to its main and co-main events, seeking to begin 2026 with a splash.
Watch UFC 324 on Sportsnet+
Lightweight stars Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett compete for an interim championship on the first UFC card of the year. Watch UFC 324 on Saturday, Jan. 24 with prelim coverage beginning 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT, and pay-per-view main card starting at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT.
These are dire days for UFC’s stale heavyweight division, which has seen its undisputed title contested only four times since the beginning of 2022 (plus a pair of interim title fights dispersed within).
No. 1-ranked Cyril Gane — 3-2-1 over that span — has been in three of those four title fights, while current champion Tom Aspinall has participated in only one. That says one thing about the division’s lack of legitimate contenders and another about how disorganized its title picture has become. Not to mention Aspinall’s currently sidelined following eye surgery, which was necessitated by the traumatic bilateral gouging that saw his October title defence vs. Gane result in a no contest.
The division’s been a mess for half a decade, so blessed be the gift that is Waldo Cortes-Acosta, a 34-year-old Dominican who showed up on the Contender Series in 2022, earned a contract, and proceeded to run off a 9-2 UFC record over the next three years.
Once a Cincinnati Reds pitching prospect, Cortes-Acosta fought five times in 2025 — and he says he’d like to top that with six or seven in 2026 — finishing the year with a pair of performance of the night bonuses following knockouts of Ante Delija and Shamil Gaziev. That only fuelled his surging popularity and shot him all the way up to No. 5 in the UFC’s heavyweight rankings, where he’s now poised to enter the title picture with one more attention-grabbing outing.
“Anything can happen in this sport,” said Cortes Acosta, who will be fighting for a third time in two-and-a-half months on Saturday. “I just want to keep fighting actively. I want the UFC to keep me in mind for everything they can put me in. I don’t care if it’s for a title or not. I just want to fight.”
Standing in his way is Lewis, a fellow fan favourite representing the old guard that has hung around the top of the division thanks to its lack of viable up-and-comers. Two weeks shy of his 41st birthday, Lewis has already come up short in a pair of title shots, one an interim championship fight against — who else? — Gane in 2021. Yet here he is, looking to string together a third consecutive win against a much younger prospect.
“It ain’t nothing I haven’t seen before,” Lewis said of Waldo Acosta, who’s averaging as a minus-300 favourite. “I don’t be seeing what these oddsmakers be seeing whenever they be picking against me. Every time I’m like, ‘What in the hell are they talking about?’ I just watched the same video, the same fights that these people have been watching. And I’m like, ‘Are they really serious betting against me like that?’ So, once again, on Saturday, y’all will see he shouldn’t have no business in the cage with me.”
Arnold Allen vs. Jean Silva
It’s been nearly three years since Arnold Allen’s entertaining prospect rise was suddenly derailed in competitive losses to Max Holloway and Movsar Evloev, triggering a difficult period of inactivity and uncertainty for the Englishman who once seemed destined for a title shot.
There’s no shame in losing to either of those two elite featherweights — one a future hall-of-famer and the other an extremely skilled grappler who’s undefeated in 19 professional fights. But the setbacks left plenty of uncertainty as to Allen’s next steps, and even after a unanimous decision victory over the experienced Giga Chikadze in July 2024, the 31-year-old sat out all of 2025 following shoulder surgery and teased a potential move up to lightweight.
But what’s materialized instead is a sleeper contender for UFC 324’s fight of the night, as Allen chose to remain at 145 pounds. To take on Brazilian highlight machine Jean Silva, a Fighting Nerds product allergic to uneventful performances.
Silva’s violent explosiveness and reckless abandon make for a fascinating matchup against Allen’s technical skill and tactical selectivity. And the stakes are massive as an assertive victory from either fighter would shoot them up into an extremely competitive top five along with Evloev, the undefeated Lerone Murphy and Diego Lopes, who’s challenging Alexander Volkanovski for the 145-pound belt next Saturday.
Will this fight put Allen back on track for the title shot that seemed inevitable three years ago? Or will the endlessly creative Silva craft another highlight, reaffirming himself as one of the sport’s most vicious finishers following a setback loss to Lopes in September? As far as matchmaking goes, this is as good as it gets.
“I’m loving it, to be honest — I’m so happy to be back,” Allen said. “There were moments where I was — maybe it’s just me being an idiot — but thinking it wasn’t going to come. Every time I get back to training, there’s a little setback, a little setback, a little setback. Surgeons passing me around, this and that, blah blah blah. But everything’s been good. I’m here — touch wood — and I’m grateful to be doing what I love, doing what I’ve worked for since I was like 12 years old. This is my dream. It’s not just my job.”
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As we await the next move for flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko following her November dismantling of Weili Zhang in a rare, cross-division women’s super-fight, a 125-pound mini-tournament has formed as the division sorts itself out beneath her.
Alexa Grasso was originally booked to fight two-time former flyweight champion Rose Namajunas on this card, but had to drop out, clearing the way for surging prospect Natalia Silva to step in. Meanwhile, Grasso was booked into a March date with Maycee Barber. Someone from this group ought to be next for Shevchenko. And all indications are that, with a win, Namajunas would have the inside track.
“Yeah, it’s just super exciting and all the more motivating,” Namajunas said. “I’m not too worried about it. You definitely can’t be looking past this or anything. One step at a time. But it’s definitely more motivating.”
For Namajunas, the two-time former strawweight champ, who’s sputtered to a 3-2 record since moving up to 125 pounds, that would represent a fascinating second life in the sport after she was a fixture of most marquee 115-pound fights for over half a decade. When Namajunas won her first UFC title, Silva was still fighting on the regional circuit in Brazil.
Yet for Silva, a victory would give her 14 in a row — eight in the UFC — plus a strong argument for being elevated straight into a title fight herself. Erin Blanchfield may have something to say about that. But if Silva can come away from this short-notice fight with a victory, she’ll have as impressive a resume as any woman in the promotion yet to fight for a title. And her championship opportunity may not be far behind.
“The numbers speak for themselves. We’re talking about seven wins in the UFC, two of them for bonuses. I’ve had great performances against a lot of fighters,” Silva says. “The results are there. A win against Rose on Saturday gives me the credentials to fight for the title.”
Umar Nurmagomedov vs. Deiveson Figueiredo
We learned a lot about Nurmagomedov in 2025. First, that his previously flawless game had some fatal deficiencies, which were exposed by Merab Dvalishvili over five laborious rounds in a bantamweight title fight at UFC 311. But then that Nurmagomedov could address them and adjust back, as he proved with a convincing October victory — 30-27 on all three scorecards — over Mario Bautista, who’d won eight straight and is not easy to look good against.
Nurmagomedov controlled Bautista — a jiu-jitsu black belt and submission specialist — on the ground for over two-thirds of the fight while out-striking him on the feet, reestablishing himself as one of a stacked division’s most well-rounded threats.
Now, he gets Deiveson Figueiredo, another accomplished grappler with powerful Muay Thai on the feet. Nurmagomedov’s a fresh matchup for 135’s new champion, Petr Yan. And a statement performance Saturday against a name-brand opponent — particularly if coupled with a Song Yadong victory over Sean O’Malley — could vault Khabib’s cousin right back into a title shot.
“For me, it doesn’t matter,” Nurmagomedov says. “Any option, I’m going to be ready.”
Nurmagomedov’s entering as an overwhelming betting favourite — as high as -1,600 in some places — yet no one should count out Figueiredo, who will be fighting for his career. At 38, and with recent losses to Yan and Cory Sandhagen on his resume, the former flyweight champion can’t afford to drop this fight. If he does, retirement may beckon. He’ll be throwing everything he has at Nurmagomedov — a dangerous proposition considering Figueiredo has as much power as anyone in the division.
Ateba Gautier vs. Andrey Pulyaev
It’s hard to say what’s scarier about Gautier — that seven of his nine professional wins have come via first-round knockout or that, at 23, he’s still several years shy of entering his athletic prime.
The Cameroonian has been rag-dolling opponents since entering the UFC off the Contender Series in late 2024, racking up a trio of violent finishes that established him as one of the most dangerous prospects in the sport. And he’s still far from a finished product, entering his sixth year as a professional with an abundance of untapped potential.
It’s among the reasons he’s a massive favourite this Saturday — ranging from minus-800 to minus-1,000 — against Russian southpaw Andrey Pulyaev, who scored a nasty body-kick-to-ground-and-pound victory over Nick Klein his last time out. Long-armed and 6-foot-4, Pulyaev is one of the few middleweights who can come close to matching Gautier’s size and physicality. But it’s possible Gautier’s without equal in the division when it comes to fight-changing power.
The UFC has built Gautier deliberately to this point, feeding him similarly inexperienced promotional newcomers and resisting the urge to thrust him into higher-profile fights. But if he can find another showstopping finish against Pulyaev, it’ll be hard to deny Gautier a much stiffer challenge his next time out. And if he stays as active as he was last year, continuing to demonstrate tactical and technical improvements along the way, it’s a good bet we’re talking about Gautier a year from now as UFC’s breakout fighter of 2026.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Sabres signed Josh Doan to a seven-year, $48.65 million contract extension in a deal announced Wednesday that secures the third-year forward as a key fixture of the team’s core group.
The signing was the first completed by newly promoted general manager Jarmo Kekalainen and rewards a player enjoying a breakout season in his first year with Buffalo.
The 23-year-old is from Scottsdale, Arizona, and the son of former Coyotes captain Shane Doan. In showing signs of following in his father’s offensive and physical style, Doan has already set career-bests with 15 goals and 35 points in 49 games this season, and leads the NHL with 35 takeaways.
Doan was in the final year of his rookie contract, and is now signed through 2032-33.
“Josh is a player that impacts the team both on and off the ice,” Kekalainen said. “He works hard, is competitive and skilled, and his game is going to continue to develop.”
Doan was acquired along with defenseman Michael Kesselring in a trade that sent high-scoring forward JJ Peterka to Utah in late June. The deal was completed by Kekalainen’s predecessor Kevyn Adams, who was fired last month.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Doan played mostly a checking role with the Mammoth, but was eager to develop his offensive touch in an expanded role in Buffalo. Selected by Arizona in the second-round of the 2021 draft, he’s already surpassed the combined production of 12 goals and 28 points in 62 games over his first two NHL seasons.
Doan’s two-way presence has helped the Sabres climb into playoff contention in a bid to end an NHL-record 14-season playoff drought. Buffalo (27-17-5), coming off a 5-3 win at Nashville on Tuesday night, is 16-3-1 in its past 20 and entered Wednesday in fifth place in the Eastern Conference standings.
The fact that the Toronto Blue Jays‘ pennant defence will take place without a key player is resonating with at least one of his former teammates.
Star shortstop Bo Bichette, who hit a go-ahead three-run home run in Game 7 of the World Series, reportedly signed with the New York Mets last week, leaving Toronto after seven seasons with the club.
Fellow infielder Ernie Clement — a post-season hero himself, with 30 hits in 77 plate appearance — said life without Bichette will be an adjustment.
“I’m really happy for him. He deserves every penny he gets. He’s a heckuva player, awesome dude, he’s become a really a good friend of mine. It sucks seeing him go,” Clement said on the JD Bunkis Podcast on Tuesday. “It’s gonna be really weird not having Bo Bichette in the Blue Jays locker room.”
Clement, who was among a group of 2025 Blue Jays who recently travelled to Bichette’s wedding, said he has kept in touch with multiple teammates from the AL-champion club through their fantasy football league, which Bichette won.
(Pitcher Kevin Gausman finished last, with his punishment still to be determined, per Clement).
Clement added that Bichette was locked into helping the Blue Jays win the World Series before reaching free agency.
“He knew that he had some decisions to make after the season, and he was so engulfed in trying to win the World Series that it finally hit him,” Clement said.
Meanwhile, without Bichette, and with the likes of Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt still available in free agency, Clement said the 2025 Blue Jays’ lauded chemistry will be “impossible to replicate.”
The other knockdown effect of Bichette’s departure will occur in the infield, where Andres Gimenez will likely move to shortstop while free-agent signing Kazuma Okamoto appears headed to third base.
Clement, then, seems slated to man second base, just one season after receiving a Gold Glove nomination at third.
He said he’s willing to play wherever he’s needed.
“Wherever I’m playing, I go trust my instincts and any ball hit my way, I take a lot of pride in making sure it doesn’t get to the outfield,” Clement said. “I don’t do a lot of thinking over there. … Short, third, second, I’m ready to roll. Whatever they need me to do, I’m good.”
The goal, Clement said, is simple.
“We’re all pretty hungry to get back to the World Series and start winning ball games again,” he said.
Since that crushing Game 7 loss, Clement has spent his season in the public eye around his hometown of Rochester, N.Y., and in Toronto, attending sports events and playing plenty of golf on the side.
He even got some shinny in, he said.
“I think maybe I got one more skate, then I’m rocking and rolling and it’s all baseball,” Clement said.
That baseball will begin March 3 at the World Baseball Classic, where Clement was recently named to Team USA.
The Blue Jays’ home opener follows not long after, on March 27.
In between, Clement said he plans to do what worked for him ahead of the post-season last year.
“Those five, six days off, or whatever it was before we played the Yankees … I had been dealing with a broken hand,” he said. “I came into the playoffs just super healthy and ready to go.”
“I can’t say we ever thought it was done,” Dombrowski told reporters via Zoom on Tuesday. “We thought we were very close to having a deal done, and we thought it was going to happen. But it wasn’t done, so there’s a difference between the two. … Until you sign a memo of understanding, you don’t have a deal done, and we did not sign one of those. It wasn’t that we weren’t moving towards that direction; it wasn’t that we didn’t think we were going to get there based upon our conversations. …I did think we were going to get a deal done.”
The former Toronto Blue Jay infielder Bichette reportedly declined a seven-year, $200-million deal from the Phillies to sign his three-year, $126-million contract with the New York Mets.
He could have joined the 96-win Phillies and paired up with Bryce Harper and Trea Turner, but instead went for the $42-million annual average to join the Mets, who missed the post-season in 2025.
“This is not the first time this has ever happened to me; it actually happens more than you think,” Dombrowski said. “… It’s a gut punch, you feel it, that day you’re very upset, but you have to pick yourself off and shake it off because you can’t just wallow in what took place.”
Despite missing on Bichette, the Phillies haven’t had a terrible off-season. They re-signed designated hitter Kyle Schwarber and catcher JT Realmuto to long-term deals, while adding reliever Brad Keller and outfielder Adolis Garcia.
“I feel great about our club going into Spring Training,” Dombrowski said.
Dombrowski also made it clear that Philadelphia is no longer looking to add this off-season. “We’re content where we are,” he said.
