Italian Sofia Goggia overcame her disappointment at the Alpine Skiing World Championships on Sunday by winning the downhill in Crans-Montana (Switzerland), ahead of her compatriot Federica Brignone and Frenchwoman Laura Gauché, who stood on a podium for the first time. global.
Imperial at the start of the season but eliminated at the Worlds, then left in the net during the only training session on Friday in the Valais resort, Goggia beat Brignone by 15/100 and Gauché by 41/100, in changing conditions where snow and fog gave way to the sun. With her 22nd success in the World Cup, the fifth this season, the 30-year-old Bergamasque now has a 179-point lead over the Slovenian Ilka Stuhec in the downhill classification and is heading for a fourth crystal globe in the specialty after those of 2018, 2021 and 2022.
Laura Gauché, 27, climbs on her first World Cup podium and confirms her progress, after having achieved her first five top 10 finishes in the last 13 months, including four in super-G and a seventh place in January in the downhill of Cortina d’Ampezzo. The speed specialists have two runs left, next weekend on the Norwegian track of Kvitfjell – which does not usually appear on the women’s calendar -, then during the finals of Soldeu in Andorra.
The American Mikaela Shiffrin, who preferred to skip the Crans-Montana stage and is training in Norway, is still leading the big globe race, with 720 points ahead of the Slovak Petra Vlhova . With 85 World Cup successes at only 27 years old, the Colorado skier is only one victory away from the historic record of 86 successes of Swede Ingemar Stenmark.