While waiting to return to Cortina d’Ampezzo in a year for the 2026 Olympic Games, Federica Brignone scored her fourth victory of the winter there on Sunday in a super-G which did not please Lindsey Vonn.
If the organizers of the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan Cortina, present in large numbers in the arrival area at the bottom of the “Olimpia delle Tofane”, needed advertising to sell their tickets in Italy, the local skiers gave them a promotion from hell.
The day after the superb victory of “queen” Sofia Goggia in the downhill under a bright sun, Federica Brignone, equally impressive, left no chance to the competition in the super-G.
The sky was more overcast this Sunday, but that did not prevent the Valdotaine from shining: impeccable throughout the course, always very aggressive, she relegated the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami and Corinne Suter, respectively to 58/100th and at 1 sec 08/100th.
The Italian Federica Brignone during the super-G in Cortina d’Ampezzo on January 19, 2025
Tiziana FABI – AFP
Brignone, already the oldest World Cup winner at 34, won her 31st victory, her fourth of the winter in a third discipline after the giant (Sölden and Semmering) and the downhill (Sankt Anton).
As a result, almost halfway through the season, she now has a 106-point lead over the Swiss Camille Rast who is not taking part in the speed events but who she will meet again on Tuesday at Kronplatz, still in Italy, for a slalom. giant.
– “Free in my head” –
“The globe of world No.1? I don’t know, to achieve it, I will have to continue skiing as I did today, liberated in my head with the sole motivation of achieving the best possible round” , she declared on the Rai television channel.
“I know that it won’t be like this in every race, with the pressure, but at the moment, everything is going well for me,” smiled the Italian who had never yet won in the posh resort of the Dolomites .
“This victory is very important, I have been waiting for it for ten years, it was frustrating,” she admitted.
Seventh, 1 sec 25/100ths behind Brignone, her compatriot and great rival Sofia Goggia, who won the super-G in December in Beaver Creek (United States), according to her, lost all her chances of a podium by missing the departure.
-“Before my first push, I realized that I had already triggered the gate while I was still in the cabin (…) But it remains a good weekend for me,” declared “Turbo Goggia ” who seriously injured her right leg almost a year ago.
– Vonn remains positive –
Since her return to the World Cup, at age 40 and six years after retiring, Lindsey Vonn has been gaining momentum. But the American experienced her first setback on the track where she won twelve times.
American Lindsey Vonn greets the public after her fall in the super-G in Cortina d’Ampezzo on January 19, 2025
Tiziana FABI – AFP
Twentieth in the descent the day before, the quadruple winner of the world N.1 globe was this time in the running for the podium, a first since March 2018, when she made a mistake and fell.
Vonn, whose right knee was replaced by a titanium prosthesis, quickly got up and reached the finish area with a smile on her face.
“I was skiing well, trying to be aggressive, but I was late on that gate and my skis collided, I lost my balance,” she explained on Eurosport.
“This weekend reminded me that I still need time, I have a lot to wait but I have to be really patient (…) I remain positive,” added the American who had finished just off the podium last weekend in Sankt Anton (Austria).
The best Frenchwoman Karen Clément finished in 17th place.
AFP / Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italie) (AFP) / © 2025 AFP
