Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy) (AFP) – Federica Brignone is in pole position for double Milan-Cortina gold after the veteran Italian topped the times in the first run of Sunday’s giant slalom, while Mikaela Shiffrin sits in striking distance. The newly-crowned Olympic super-G champion, Brignone flew down the slope in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1min 3.23sec to establish a lead of 0.34sec over Germany’s Lena Duerr, who at 34 years old has never won a giant slalom race.
Brignone’s compatriot Goggia, bronze medallist in the downhill at this Olympics, is also in the hunt for another medal after finishing 0.46sec off the pace in third. “I found it easy out there, the snow is really easy and they haven’t made the course anything special, all you have to do is push yourself down the slope,” said Brignone. “Apart from the early turns it’s fairly simple so I just looked to attack, be clean and be intelligent about the changes to the terrain…I did a proper first run and it just came to me.”
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Shiffrin was just over a second behind Brignone with a conservative opening run, with the second set to start at 1230 GMT, as she attempts to end her Olympic medal misery. The 30-year-old American came into the Games in red-hot form in the regular season World Cup but her disappointing performance in the slalom run of the team combined cost her and partner Breezy Johnson a podium spot.
Shiffrin left the 2022 Beijing Games without a single medal from six races, failing to even finish in three, but in the intervening years has established herself as the greatest of all time with a record 108 wins on the World Cup circuit. Brignone made history as the oldest ever Olympic gold medal winner in alpine skiing when she triumphed in the super-G on Thursday, less than a year after suffering a double leg fracture in April 2025.
The 35-year-old also surpassed Lindsey Vonn as the oldest female medallist, a record she has a great chance of extending by a few days if she manages to win a 19th medal of the Games for host nation Italy. The country’s Olympic committee CONI said ahead of the Games that it was targeting 19 medals, one less than the record tally of 20 set in 1994 in Lillehammer when Italy claimed seven golds. Italy has six golds in its current haul of 18, with the country sitting second in the medal table behind Norway.
© 2024 AFP
