Sofia Gogia won on Friday night’s departure at Lake Louise. Breezy Johnson (USA) and SV runner Mirjam Puchner were already about a second and a half behind in second and third.
Sofia Gogia wins the first women’s downhill run of the alpine ski season with a better win. Italy’s Olympic champion won her World Cup comeback race in her particular discipline at Lake Louise on Friday by 1.47 seconds ahead of American Breezy Johnson and 1.54 seconds ahead of Mirjam Puchner, who had previously placed third on the Austrian women’s podium. Season. Ramona Siebenhofer (+1.96) missed the podium in the fourth.
The first of nine planned seasonal races for the women took place after two variable days with rain and perfect weather. And after only one training session, as the other two planned units fell victim to the weather. The terrain waves that had been postponed for the men a week earlier were turned away again.
win after five runners
The winner was already clear after the number five runner. Setting the best time in training, Gogia left nothing to burn on his return descent and crossed the finish line with such a wide margin that no competitor came close to him. Gogia’s first downhill victory at Lake Louise was his twelfth overall and ninth in a downhill. In his six most recent runs, the 29-year-old has made it to the podium every now and then.
The Italian was ruled out of competition last January ahead of his home World Cup in Cortina d’Ampezzo due to a head fracture of the tibia. Before that, however, she had dominated the downhill to such an extent that the crystal ball for discipline victories could no longer be taken from her. Gogia returned to the race track in giant slalom at the start of the season in Sölden in October.
16 degree minus
Conditions on the first day of the race in the Canadian Rockies were so good at minus 16 degrees Celsius that Gogia’s winning time was five seconds faster than his best time on Wednesday – albeit with peeping errors. It also bodes well for the return of Nicole Schmidhofer, who was at the start of the race in Banff National Park for the first time since a long injury.
Schmidhofer looked after the SV Women’s last downhill win at Lake Louise two years ago, but then was seriously injured last season. “Welcome Back” finally ends with a clearly relieved Styrian calling Gogia. “It was good to drive. I don’t have much for it at the moment,” said Schmidhofer, noting the 4.62-second gap. “It was still a good move.”
Cornelia Hutter also made a successful downhill comeback as a strong seventh, behind Puchner (third) and Siebenhofer (fourth). The Styrian had won here in 2017 even after returning from an injury. Another downhill run for women’s alpine skiing will take place on the Olympic Slope in Canada on Saturday (8.30 a.m. CET). There will finally be Super-G on Sunday (6:30 PM).
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