Brignone overtakes Shiffrin and conquers the giant in Sölden

Magnificent Federica Brignone. In the Sölden giant slalom which opens the season, he comes from behind to win the giant slalom on the Rettenbach glacier, beating Mikaela Shiffrin who was in the lead after the first heat. “It was a surprise for me, because I struggled a lot at the beginning of the wall” says the Aosta Valley native at the end of the race. “From halfway up the wall onwards I said to myself ‘you have to go, you have to go’. I tried to ski in my own way and it turned out well. I’m very proud of what I did, but I never expected to be in front.”

Brignone super on the final wall

After a serious mistake in the upper part the Aosta Valley girl was 40 cents late in the morning, third after the American and the New Zealander Alice Robinsontrailing by 22 cents. In the first part of the second heat Federica lost so much, to the point that she thought she was on the best possible path to a podium placement. But on the last stretch of the track, in the final part of the wall, she was formidable, taking the lead and fending off Robinson’s attack, while Shiffrin slipped to fifth place. Immediately after the victory Brignone performed a funny dance called the “chicken dance”. Behind her, the New Zealander is second at 17 cents, the Austrian third Julia Scheib at 1”08, after an 11 position comeback. World Cup holder Lara Gut-Behrami withdrew from this morning’s reconnaissance due to left knee problems

Brignone, victory number 28

For Federica Brignone it is victory number 28 of her career, the thirteenth in giant slalom, which is equivalent to podium number 70. In Sölden she not only left behind the bitterness of last year, when after a first run in the lead she was overtaken by Gut -Behrami. On the Austrian glacier she became the first athlete in the history of the World Cup to win over the age of thirty-four, on 14 July: the previous limit had been set by the Austrian Elisabeth Görgl who won in Val d’Isere in 2014 at the age aged 33 years 10 months and one day.