The crazy super-g on the Olympiabakken seemed to be in the hands of the Bergamo player, then everything changed. The chance wasted by Pirovano (who also loses access to the finals by one point) and Curtoni still leader in the specialty with 19 points over Gut-Behrami. Brignone furious with herself.
One of the most incredible races of recent years, with the Kvitfjell storm from which it seemed that success number 23 in the World Cup could emerge, the sixth in super-g, for a Sofia Goggia who on the Norwegian snow demonstrated that she had completely found herself in this specialty, but leaves the weekend on the Olympiabakken without the expected victory, albeit with a World Cup (downhill) in hand.
Today’s fourth place hurts, despite what happened with the transformation of the weather conditions which sensationally favored the highest numbers, leading to the Austrian hat-trick with Ortlieb-Venier-Gritsch: for the Bergamo native, the performance remains, but 4th place is really too little even if there is good news, even without a podium after the two seconds of Curtoni and Goggia between Friday and Saturday.
Naturally, it is the red bib kept by Elena Curtoni, 12th at the finish line and just ahead of all her direct rivals for the super-g cup: when only the Soldeu finals are missing, the Valtellinese has 19 pts over Gut-Behrami, 25 compared to Huetter, with Mowinckel at -26 and Federica Brignone, twenty-first and… furious, who has to recover 44 lengths from her teammate.
Let’s start again from Goggia, who will also be competing in the Are giant on Friday, having confirmed that he wants to regain feeling with this specialty with a view to the 2023/24 season: “I’m sorry to say it, but it was a totally distorted race – Sofia’s words to the microphones by Rai Sport – With the sun it was another story, we’ve never seen girls gain a second and a half over all of us in a first part of a race like this. This is skiing, a sport full of variables: let’s say that “it was time but… it was my time for the result, but I ran a very solid race and I’m happy because I was looking for this”.
With the number 30, Laura Pirovano had a huge opportunity, playing right between Venier and Ortlieb, but finished off at the most beautiful and, with this “zero”, out of the 25 for the specialty finals by just one point. In Soldeu there will be Elena Curtoni, to try to bring home her first crystal ball: “It’s as if we hadn’t done it – the bitter, but calm as always, words of the specialty leader in the interview with Simone Benzoni – For the standings, we start off almost as we were up until Friday, but it’s a shame because I was hoping to gnaw at points by feeling very good on this track. Today there weren’t gusts like the other days, but it doesn’t take much to speed you up. I’m not on the podium and I’m sorry, but I did my race even though I felt “glued” to the ground high up, considering that I’m not a dragon at low speed. We’ll do the math in the end.”
“I am very angry – explains Federica Brignone, referring to herself for the mistake she made, with a science fiction number to stay on track, before finishing twenty-first – Even with the gap that accumulated in the initial part, which I accept because we do an outdoor sport, today I didn’t have the excellent performance of the other two days and I screwed up, entering the wall lying down for 10 meters and more. I didn’t think about taking the goal, but in any case I stopped and knew I was playing something big. Sure, it’s a completely fake super-g, but I was wrong.”
