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CORTINA D’AMPEZZO: Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel, first, celebrates during the podium ceremony of the Women’s Downhill event of FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy on January 27, 2024. – AFP photo
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO: Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel, first, celebrates during the podium ceremony of the Women’s Downhill event of FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy on January 27, 2024. – AFP photo

Norway’s Mowinckel wins World Cup downhill at Cortina

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO: Ragnhild Mowinckel won Saturday’s alpine skiing World Cup downhill at Cortina d’Ampezzo, claiming the honours in a race blighted by interruptions for crashes and driving winds. Norwegian Mowinckel claimed her first ever World Cup downhill win with a time of one minute and 33.5 seconds, beating American Jacqueline Wiles by 0.35sec.

Reigning downhill champion Sofia Goggia, who finished 0.44sec off the pace in third, had been leading when the race was interrupted for over half an hour due to winds judged dangerous for competitors just 17 runs into the event. Goggia is still on course for a fourth straight World Cup title in the discipline as she leads the standings by 89 points from Friday’s downhill winner Stephanie Venier.

Mowinckel trails Goggia by 208 points in the downhill standings and is 11th in the overall race for the crystal globe. “It wasn’t the best descent, technically speaking, but there was character and grit. I got hit with a lot of wind... I made some mistakes because it moved me around,” Goggia said to RAI.

“I had to deal with a lot of wind... having to wait for so many minutes and the conditions changing made a big difference to the final result,” she added later after being knocked off top spot. The long stoppage was one of several on a difficult day in Cortina, with Isabella Wright having to be taken away by helicopter after slamming into the safety netting after losing control at the difficult Delta jump.

However the American was spared any serious injuries and was later seen chatting with fellow skiers outside the finishing area. Mowinckel won a race missing American skiing icon Mikaela Shiffrin and reigning downhill Olympic champion Corinne Suter after both suffered painful crashes on Friday.

Suter was ruled out of the rest of the season after suffering serious ligament damage to her left knee during the first of two downhill races in Cortina. A three-day run of races at Cortina, which is co-hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics, ends with Sunday morning’s super-G.


GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN: Winner France’s Nils Allegre reacts after the men’s Super G event of the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, on January 27, 2024. – AFP
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN: Winner France’s Nils Allegre reacts after the men’s Super G event of the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, on January 27, 2024. – AFP

Meanwhile, French skier Nils Allegre claimed his first World Cup win in the super-G at Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Saturday, as the race favourites were pushed from the podium. Allegre, a 30-year-old Frenchman finished 0.18sec ahead of Italy’s Guglielmo Bosca with Swiss Loic Meillard third 0.25sec off the pace.

Marco Odermatt and Cyprien Sarrazin, who have dominated the speed events in the past month, finished off the podium. Allegre has been on the circuit since 2016, but has never made it to the podium in 102 starts. He has been in top form this season, coming fourth at Val Gardena in December.

“What happened? I don’t know,” Allegre told Germany’s ZDF network. “Honestly, I just had a good feeling on the snow, and my skiis are some of the best in these conditions.” Allegre said he “didn’t feel too good this morning, a little bit tired. But with my experience, I know you should not trust how you feel sometimes.” — AFP

Odermatt, the clear leader in the overall and super-G standings, was pushed into fourth by three hundredths of a second. “I’m satisfied with my performance,” Odermatt told ZDF. “It’s the easiest super-G that I’ve run in the World Cup,” he said. “It’s very short here, so it’s hard to differentiate yourself.”

It was only the second time this winter the Swiss has not finished in the top three. “It was really soft. I thought that when they added the salt, it’d tighten up, but it didn’t really pull it together. It was just extremely soft.”

Austria’s Vincent Kriechmayr, who won the event in 2021, finished fifth, seven hundredths of a second off a podium placing. French rising star Sarrazin, who came into the race on the back of a stunning double at Kitzbuehel last weekend, recorded a time of 1:12:56, to finish 11th. — AFP

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