ALTENMARKT-ZAUCHENSEE, Austria — Italy’s Sofia Goggia was a winner again in an Alpine Ski, women’s World Cup downhill race and rose to fourth on the all-time list of career victories in the marquee speed discipline.
The 2018 Olympic champion´s first downhill win this season and 18th of her World Cup career was by 0.10 seconds over Stephanie Venier. In a tie for third place, Nicol Delago and Mirjam Puchner were both 0.34 behind Goggia.
Only ski greats Lindsey Vonn, Annemarie Moser-Proll and Renate Gotschl have more women´s downhill wins in the World Cup circuit´s 67-year history. Vonn leads with 43.
Goggia was denied victory in the season-opening downhill last month at St. Moritz, Switzerland, by Mikaela Shiffin, who skipped this weekend´s races in Austria. Shiffrin is scheduled to return Tuesday evening in a slalom at Flachau.
Goggia won one day after failing to finish a super-G where she had looked ill at ease on the Austrian snow.
“It was really emotional to me, not just because it was a bad race, but for many reasons I cannot explain to you now,” Goggia said according to AP.
The 31-year-old Italian extended her points lead in the season-long World Cup downhill standings where she seeks a fifth title and a fourth straight.
Goggia is fifth in the overall World Cup standings which Shiffrin now leads by 164 points from Federica Brignone, the 2020 champion who placed 14th
Elsewhere, a serious crash for his friend and biggest rival Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who was airlifted to a hospital, took some pleasure away from a stellar win for Swiss star Marco Odermatt in his nation’s signature ski race.
Kilde crashed within sight of the finish of the longest downhill on the World Cup circuit just minutes after Odermatt raced to what might have been his best win in an already standout career at age 26.
“A bitter-sweet day, for sure, when you see a friend like Alex crashing that hard,” said Odermatt, calling the performance to earn a 31st career World Cup win “probably one of the best ever from my side.”
Kilde, the overall World Cup champion in 2020 and long-time partner of American star Mikaela Shiffrin, had lengthy treatment on his right leg while laying flat next to the finish line. A helicopter came to the finish area and Kilde was winched up laying on a medical board to be taken to a hospital.
It was a tiring – and perhaps excessive – third straight day of speed racing at Switzerland´s most storied ski venue. On Friday, 2021 overall champion Alexis Pinturault of France was airlifted after sustaining a season-ending knee injury in a crash.
“Maybe we had a lesson now,” said Odermatt, who won the shorter downhill that was added to the program, and placed second in the scheduled super-G. “I really don´t think we need three races here, even if it was good for me.”
The 31-year-old Kilde is renowned as one of the strongest ski racers, yet had been fighting sickness this week in Wengen before placing third in both the shorter downhill and super-G, which ran close to 1 minute, 50 seconds as the longest super-G of the season.
Odermatt and Cyprien Sarrazin of France traded wins on the previous two days and finished 1-2 again in downhill, far ahead of all rivals.
