Industry News
On Friday, December 8, 2023, Sofia Goggia from Italy won the first of two Super-G races at St. Moritz, Switzerland, almost a second ahead of the next best skier. It was the first speed event of the season, after cancellation of the FIS speed races at Matterhorn Ski Paradise at the Swiss-Italian border last month. Second place went to Austria’s Cornelia Hütter and third to Lara Gut-Behrami from Switzerland. Mikaela Shiffrin from the USA came fourth just 0.06 seconds behind her Swiss rival, narrowly missing out on the podium.
The weather on Friday was not as advertised in St. Moritz — the resort is known as Europe’s sunniest ski resort with 250+ sunny days a year — but rather overcast, with a layer of fog on the top section of the race course while the visibility improved lower down. The snow as well was not the usual snow the Corviglia race course is known for, and not as fast and icy as last year but rather containing a fair bit of moisture, making the course slower than it typically is. The resort saw over a meter (40 inches) of snow last week which may have impacted snow conditions on the day. The visibility was not optimal, with flat light and light snowfall, and some racers struggled more than others with the conditions in the glamorous Swiss ski resort.
However, the conditions definitely suited Italy’s Goggia, who put down a very aggressive run. She looked slower on the top section of the course but picked up momentum on the run, attacking the course in her usual style with a lot of pressure on the inside ski, taking out a gate on her way down as the hit it with her upper body, but unlike last year did not break her hand on the gate. The Italian ski racer shot across the finish line with almost a second lead ahead of second-placed Cornelia Hütter, in 1:16:63.
“I’m a bit surprised,” Goggia admitted after the race, “I was not so happy with my skiing actually, but I was surpried by my gap [lead].” It marks Goggia’s 23rd World Cup victory and only sixth Super-G victory, with the Downhill being her strongest discipline. Last year in St. Moritz Goggia competed in two Downhill races in St. Moritz and broke her hand on the first day and came back the following day, fresh from surgery, to win the race inspite of her recent fracture. Goggia was the sixth skier out off the race gates and admitted she did not expect to win, “Coming down with the first numbers in St. Moritz is never easy and you don’t have a lot of references. When I saw I was ahead with 95 hundredths, I said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to last,” but the Italian had no contestors to her victory.
- Related: Italian Ski Racer Goggia Returns Hours after Surger to Win Downhill Race with Fractured Hand
Second place went to Austria’s Cornelia Hütter, nicknamed “full gas Conny,” who crossed the finish line 0.95 seconds behind Goggia, while local favorite Lara Gut-Behrami finished in third, a mere 0.07 seconds behind the Austrian. Lara Gut-Behrami has won in St. Moritz a total of three times and the Swiss ski racer looked comfortable on home soil. St. Moritz was the location of her first ever World Cup career victory and it was also the location of her first ever Downhill podium in 2008, when the Swiss famously crashed meters before the finish line and slid across with only one ski still attached to finish in third. Without the crash, the then 16-year-old would surely have won the race, as she finished a mere 0.35 seconds behind the victory despite the tumble.
Mikaela Shiffrin narrowly missed out on a podium, finishing just 0.06 seconds behind Gut-Behrami. Shiffrin looked good on the top section but was not able to carry the pace all the way down the course. The American ski racer has won a podium in St. Moritz in Super-G five times, with a first place on two occasions, but today was not the day. Shiffrin in an interview later stated that she had focussed more on her Downhill training in Portillo, Chile, and Kitzbühel, Austria.
Teammate Isabella Wright recorded a DNF (‘did not finish’) as the American skier went to low on the top section of the course coming out off the thick fog, causing her to miss the subsequent gate, ending her bid for FIS points. Keely Cashman from Team USA skied into 24th and Lauren Macuga into 30th, earning both women valuable FIS points for the rankings. Tricia Mangan finished in 38th. Breezy Johnson did not compete as she is currently under scrutiny by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (‘USADA’) for failing to record her whereabouts three times in a year. It is a standard expectation of athletes to register their locations for the purpose of random drug testing with the cental data base Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (‘ADAMS’).
