LA THUILE, Italy (AP) — Federica Brignone all but locked up the women’s overall World Cup title by winning a super-G on Friday, giving the Italian a near-insurmountable lead in the season standings.
Brignone extended her advantage over her only remaining challenger, defending champion Lara Gut-Behrami, to 382 points with four races left at the World Cup finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.
A race win is worth 100 points, but Gut-Behrami usually doesn’t compete in slalom. Skipping that event at the finals would leave the Swiss standout with only three races, not enough to be able to close the gap.
“It's crazy, and doing it here, at home, it's even more crazy,” Brignone said after winning the race close to her Italian hometown in the Aosta Valley. “This year it was one of my biggest dreams, to win here in La Thuile, and I couldn’t finish my career without it. So, I’m really proud.”
Brignone previously won the big crystal globe in 2020, when she overtook five-time champion Mikaela Shiffrin on top of the standings in the final weeks of the season when the American took a break from racing after the death of her father.
“I wanted to redo it, and retry it. It was one of my dreams as a kid,” Brignone said.
Smallest margin possible
On Friday, Brignone edged her teammate Sofia Goggia for victory in the penultimate super-G of the season.
“I wanted it so much, to see the green light in front of my people here,” Brignone said. “It's just crazy, it's really something really, really big.”
Brignone won by the smallest margin possible after Goggia led throughout her run but lost a tenth of second in the final section to finish 0.01 behind.
Romane Miradoli came 0.05 behind in third for the French skier’s first podium result in more than a year.
Gut-Behrami shared the fourth place with her Swiss teammate Corinne Suter, both trailing Brignone by 0.35 seconds.
Valérie Grenier, of St. Isidore, Ont., finished eighth, 0.66 seconds back of Brignone.
Grenier, the lone Canadian racing, vaulted into the top 10 after starting 31st.
“I feel really good about the race today,” Grenier said. “I’ve had some tough races this season with some DNFs, and it’s been a while since I’ve been in the top 10, so I’m super happy with the result. This is the first time racing in La Thuile, but we train here a lot. Our coach Laurent (Praz) is from here and we love the area, so very happy to race here and to get a good result.”
Friday's result set up a tense battle for the super-G season title, with Brignone now five points ahead of Gut-Behrami, with only the March 23 race at the finals remaining.
Emma Aicher, who won Thursday’s super-G, seemed on course to repeat that triumph but the German prodigy skied out of the course halfway through her run when she was leading Brignone by nearly three-tenths of a second.
“A really up-and-down season”
Lindsey Vonn was the best American finisher in 13th, a day after she fell and slid through a gate early in Thursday’s race but remained unhurt.
Vonn, who has qualified for the downhill and super-G at the finals, called her comeback at age 40 after six years away from the circuit “a really up-and-down season” in which she recorded two top-10 results from 12 starts.
“With super-G, I feel like it’s my best discipline, I’m skiing the best but I’m really inconsistent,” the former four-time overall champion said. “I’ve been changing my material pretty much every run, every race, sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s not. I just need to find the balance.”
Vonn said in AP interview in January she planned to race one more season and compete at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics before retiring again.
“I just need training and time, next year is my main goal,” she said. “I think I did exactly what I needed to do this year, get a good starting number and give me a good chance for next year to do well.”
Her teammate Lauren Macuga, the bronze medalist from last month’s world championships, was 19th.
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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/alpine-skiing
The Associated Press
