ST. ANTON, Austria — Switzerland’s Lara Gut Behrami defeated three Italian skiers to win a women´s World Cup super-G that ended early due to high winds.
“It didn´t really go as I planned,” Gut Behrami said according to AP. “In the flat part, I had a lot of mistakes and I never expected to be that fast.”
Gut Behrami was 0.15 seconds faster than Federica Brignone, who won a shortened super-G when Gut Behrami finished third and 0.19 seconds faster than Marta Bassino.
“I wasn´t able to push as I would have liked or at least as much as I had done in the previous race,” said Brignone.
“In the final part the snow was softer and I wasn´t able to speed well, to attack. A great weekend anyway, I´m very satisfied,” the Italian added.
Elena Curtoni was 0.52 seconds back in fourth to add to the strong showing of the Italian team, which had to do without its biggest star, Sofia Goggia.
Goggia opted not to start as a precautionary measure following her crash in the race. The Italian team said Goggia underwent MRI and CT scans at a clinic in Milan, but they revealed no damage to her right knee.
Mikaela Shiffrin did not race this weekend, resting after an intense block of technical races. The American was expected back next week at speed races in Cortina d´Ampezzo, Italy, aiming for a record-setting 83rd women´s World Cup win to break her 82-win tie with Lindsey Vonn.
Elsewhere, Henrik Kristoffersen raced through steady falling snow to win the men’s World Cup slalom and give Norway a three-race sweep.
For the third straight day, in three different disciplines, a Norwegian won with a home Swiss racer runner-up.
Kristoffersen finished 0.20 seconds ahead of first-run leader Loic Meillard who was denied giving Switzerland a first win for 36 years in its classic World Cup slalom.
Lucas Braathen was third, 0.49 seconds behind his Norway teammate Kristoffersen, one week after he won the slalom at nearby Adelboden. Other racers were all at least one second further back.
Kristoffersen´s 30th career World Cup win lifted him back into the lead over Braathen in the season-long slalom standings. The gap is just 10 points, 320-310.
“Everything worked out great,” said Kristoffersen, who started immediately after Braathen and heard the public address down at the finish praising that race-leading run.
He completed the Norwegian sweep at Wengen just as he did in 2016, when Aksel Lund Svindal won the downhill and Kjetil Jansrud won the Alpine combined.
This time, the Norway triple was started by Aleksander Aamodt Kilde winning in super-G and downhill.
The runners-up were, respectively, Stefan Rogentin and Marco Odermatt, who has a big lead in the overall World Cup standings. Odermatt does not start in slalom.
Norwegian men have now won eight of the nine World Cup slaloms since the Beijing Olympics last February. Only Switzerland’s Daniel Yule interrupted the streak.
