Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy) (AFP) – Federica Brignone continued her superb season by winning Sunday’s super-G at Cortina d’Ampezzo to extend her World Cup lead, as comeback queen Lindsey Vonn crashed out. Veteran Brignone, already the oldest woman to win a World Cup race at the age of 34, claimed the honours with a time of one minute and 21.64 seconds, 0.58 seconds ahead of reigning overall and discipline champion Lara Gut-Behrami.
Brignone made sure that Italy claimed a Cortina double this weekend after Sofia Goggia won Saturday’s downhill with her fourth victory of the season. Her win was also her first ever on the Olimpia delle Tofane piste, which will host women’s alpine events at the Winter Olympics next year. “I like this more spring-like snow because I can slide down the piste more and every mistake gets punished,” said Brignone. “All I can do is keep skiing like I have been doing, with a clear head. I just want to put in my best performances, and today I managed to do that.”
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Vonn has posted some impressive results since coming out of a near six-year retirement aged 40 after a partial right knee replacement in April, but had a poor weekend on one of her favourite courses. The 2010 Olympic downhill champion, who has 20 podium finishes including 12 wins in Cortina, slid off course after finishing 20th in the downhill on Saturday. “I think this weekend was a good learning experience for me. I haven’t really trained downhill or super-G with this kind of speed yet, so I need a little bit more time,” said Vonn.
“I really need to train more, understand that I’ve only had a few months and a few days of training, and I can’t expect always to have a perfect day.” Vonn added that she plans to next ski in the downhill and super-G at Garmisch next weekend, with a giant slalom being held in Kronplatz on Tuesday as the athletes prepare for next month’s World Championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm.
Goggia finished seventh, 1.25 seconds behind her compatriot and rival Brignone, who is bidding for a second overall World Cup title and is 106 points ahead of Camille Rast, who did not compete on Sunday. “I didn’t ski with the same flow as I did yesterday, I was imperfect everywhere,” said Goggia to Rai. “I wasn’t able to get into the rhythm of the piste, but I lost the podium coming out of the gate… I could tell straight away that I’d lost it there. I could have got a podium place, but I started far too badly.”
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