Stuhec first but Goggia makes it two

The public at the Olympia delle Tofane take the Italian athlete to their hearts. She is the new star of Cortina. Veith back on the podium.

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Date:	29/01/2017 from 1600
Place:	Cortina d'Ampezzo

The Slovenian Ilka Stuhec did it! After a brilliant performance in the training runs, she conquered the Olympia delle Tofane course with victory in the Super G, her fifth win this season. Skiing on a perfect course, Stuhec crossed the line in a time of 1'19"81, unbeaten by all the other athletes.

The public in Cortina have a new darling however – the Italian, Sofia Goggia – who earned herself another place on the podium after yesterday’s second in the Downhill, 0.31 seconds behind Stuhec.

Thanks to this result, Goggia has now matched the record number of podiums in one season held by Deborah Compagnoni. The 24-year old athlete from Bergamo has already collected nine podiums in the 2016/2017 season, just as the skier from Valtellina did in ’97 and then '98. The difference is the wins, which so far have alluded Goggia, while Compagnoni claimed five in '97 and four the following year. But it is just a matter of time for Sofia: the Italian is at the top of her game and poised to take home the ultimate honour. 

Third place on the podium went to Anna Veith, who was making something of a comeback after not being among the top three since March 2015 in Meribel.

Once again the Olympia delle Tofane was the backdrop for excitement, gorgeous sunshine and a large crowd, further demonstration of the affection the many fans have for the World Cup and the female champions of international alpine skiing.

Mikaela Shiffrin, sporting bib number 31, kept everyone guessing as she almost upset the top three rankings. Shiffrin posted the fourth fastest time, just 3 hundredths of a second behind Veith. Lara Gut, yesterday’s Downhill winner, failed to finish, complaining of a sore arm after hooking it on a gate. Nothing serious, luckily, with the Swiss team later reporting their champion had not sustained any significant injuries. 

Today some of the big names who had come to Cortina to cheer on the athletes in the 96th race in the history of the Alpine Ski World Cup there, were Isolde Kostner, Bebe Vio, Paralympic fencing champion in Rio, and other athletes from Italia Team who were at the Olympia to spend time with their team mates from the world of winter sports.

The 2017 Alpine Ski World Cup has drawn to a close, but the Fondazione Cortina 2021 is already hard at work preparing next year’s event which will be a warm-up for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

 

QUOTES

Ilka Stuhec: "I feel great. It was a great course and felt really, really good to ski so I'm definitely happy with the outcome. As always here in Cortina the course was fantastic and I celebrated with a great result".

Lindsey Vonn: "It definitely wasn’t the weekend that I was hoping for. It was really conservative skiing but I got to the finish because I needed to regain a bit of confidence for the World Championships. I did what I had planned to do and now with a couple of days’ training I’ll be back on top form".

Sofia Goggia: "A podium is always a great feeling, I’m really pleased, even if today I didn’t push myself 100%, I had a significant margin but I didn’t want to take too many risks because in my last two Super Gs, I had to abandon the race. I don’t think about winning, I just focus on myself and what I have to do. At the Rumerlo I thought I might go out, I made a mistake that could have been fatal. I hope to reduce the margin I need to get me into first place, I’m happy but I’m not going to stop here, that’s my philosophy".

Mikaela Shiffrin "Sometimes if you feel great, you can be really effective. I studied the video and I thought about how I was going to execute my run. I’m not planning on competing in the Super G at the World Championships. I’m going to focus on the Giant Slalom and the Slalom. I don’t expect to win any Super Gs but today the conditions were perfect so I was able to give it my all".