alpine skiing | World Cup in Lake Louise: Gogia crowns his dream comeback in the downhill

Italian Sofia Goggia is back in Lake Louise after her injury break with a furious first descent. There is already a small world between him and the rest of the field. Kira Weidle is disappointed on one of her favorite tracks.

She was driving only seconds on the first descent of the new World Cup season in Lake Louise/Canada, when Kira Weidle wept in despair. She made a careless mistake in the flatter part, which angered her enough: the strongest German downhill skier turned to the right too late – and landed in the fresh snow.

There was already a top result early on Friday, she knew about it. Then she touched gate after gate – as if she wanted to attack at least one more time, choosing the closest possible line. In the end, the 25-year-old woman from SC Sternberg finished in tenth place – she missed qualifying for the Olympics. She was anything but satisfied with her journey – finally aloud: “Oh, man!” She analyzed: “It was very difficult to find a mix between fine skiing and still racing.”

Gogia made a spectacular comeback in the World Cup

It actually has a special place in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies for the Kira weedle. He achieved his first World Cup podium at Lake Louise. Ski racers have naturally kept something similar throughout their careers — “Lake Louise is one of my favorite tracks,” Weidl said before the season’s first assessment.

“I’ve always been pretty successful over the years,” she said, but limited: “It’s a different race every year.” This time it was a very quick downhill run, which was evident from the first rider, Ramona Siebenhofer.

And it was a route that had a special comeback story in store: After breaking her tibia in preseason, Italian Sofia Goggia celebrated another World Cup victory at the start of the season. Since then she has contested the giant slalom in Sölden only in October, and in the speed disciplines she has managed to run another straightaway dream.

Gogia broke his shin head in February – domestic World Cup dream shattered

From top to bottom, last season’s Downhill World Cup winner drove at almost constant top speed and covered more than 3.052 kilometers between himself and the rest of the riders. Breezy Johnson (USA) and Mirjam Puchner (Austria) completed the podium, but they were 1.47 and 1.54 seconds slower. “I have to see what he thought today,” said Puchner of Gogias’ extraordinary journey on ORF.

So it was a spectacular comeback for 29-year-old Gogia after winning only four runs last season – and then, in a moment of absurdity, in early February, off the Garmisch-Partenkirchen race track, broke the head of his shin one. On the canyon race.

Her big dream of a medal at the home World Cup in Cortina d’Ampezzo was shattered – it took her not only physically, but also mentally. By the way, Kira Weidle took the downhill silver in Cortina, only the Swiss Corinne Suter was faster. Sutter was fifth on Friday ahead of Austria’s Ramona Siebenhofer.

Had to cancel two training runs – Nadine Kaffer is 45 years old.

Over the past two days, with bad weather causing the cancellation of training runs in Lake Louise, it was unclear how the women would present themselves in the first half of the season after just one training run.

However, seeing was not a major problem on race day, on the most careless mistakes such as with Weedel. Perhaps also because Canada’s winter sports resort showed up on Friday in time for a race in perfect weather, with skiers carving through the sun from top to bottom. Second German starter Nadine Kaffer was 45th (+5.52 s).

In contrast to the angry Weedle (“Oh man!”), Gogia finally bangs loudly and remains calm despite the gala ride. Then he casually celebrated with a kiss that he sent out into the world with his index finger. It probably didn’t need any further statement, the exclamation mark had already formed at the fastest speed in the Rocky Mountain snow.

That: sportschau.de