Next weekend the Women's World Cup is back to Cortina, the ‘Queen of the Dolomites’, with three days of action: two Downhills, and a Super-G races.
Cortina d'Ampezzo (ITA)
January 26th Downhill / Women 11:00 CET
January 27th Downhill / Women 10:30 CET
January 28th Super-G / Women 10:30 CET
Cortina d'Ampezzo is one of the most charming ski resorts in Italy. The small town is located in the Northern Italian province of Belluno in the Veneto region, near the northeastern border with Austria. Surrounded by the imposing peaks of the Tofana, the Monte Cristallo, and the Sorapis Dolomites, Cortina is known as the "Regina delle Dolomiti". Cortina d'Ampezzo is one of the 12 ski areas of the Dolomiti Superski Ski Paradise, one of the biggest ski areas in the world with 1,200 kilometers of slopes, modern cable cars, and fabulous mountain scenery all around.
Cortina is immersed in a landscape of unparalleled natural beauty, set in the spectacular Dolomite mountains, declared by UNESCO a World Natural Heritage Area.
Cortina d’Ampezzo made its debut on the FIS World Cup with the Men’s Downhill in 1969 and became a fixture on the Women’s Downhill tour for three years beginning in 1975. After a long hiatus, the venue has been an annual stop on the Women’s World Cup since 1993, hosting Downhill, and Super-G races on the marvelous Olimpia delle Tofane slope, one of the most spectacular settings on the circuit.
In 2020 Cortina d’Ampezzo was ready to host the World Cup Finals, but the pandemic breakout forced FIS to canceled the event.
The winter sport events circuit managed finally to restart in 2021 and in february Cortina d'Ampezzo brilliantly pulled off the most important international event held during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Cortina 2021 Alpine Ski World Championships.
Cortina, with Milan, will jointly host the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. It will be the first Olympic Games featuring multiple host cities in an official form and will be the first Winter Olympics since Sarajevo 1984 at which the opening and closing ceremonies will be held in different venues. This will be the third time Italy will host the Winter Olympics, twenty years after Turin 2006 and 70 years after the previous games held in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956. The Cortina Olympics in 1956 were the first Winter Olympics televised to a multi-national audience.
The Olympia delle Tofane, with 2,560 meters of length and stretches of absolute spectacularity such as the "Schuss", with a maximum slope of 65%, where the speed specialists jump and reach speeds of over 130 km/h., the "Salto Duca d'Aosta" and the blind passage of the "Delta", the complicated "Gran Curvone" and the subsequent change of slope of the "Scarpadon".In the final stretch where the gradient decreases, skiers have to keep the speed high to face the final traverse and the final jump. The Olympia delle Tofane will be offering again ski fans a minute and a half of pure adrenaline.
The slope hosted the ski competitions during the 1956 Winter Olympics, hosts the women's Ski World Cup competitions every year and in 2021 it was the Downhill, Super-G and Giant Slalom slope during the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.
Last season, in the first Downhill, Sofia Goggia confirmed her favorite role in Cortina. She claimed her third World Cup win in Cortina d'Ampezzo, after winning the Downhill event on 2022 and 2018. Goggia won her fourth Downhill race of the season in the Olympia delle Tofane ahead of Slovenia's Ilka Stuhec (+0.13), and Germany's Kira Weidle (+0.36).
Last season, in the second Downhill held in Cortina, in a shortened Olympia delle Tofane racecourse due to the wind, Slovenian Ilka Stuhec returns to the Top of the Podium four years after her double win (Super-G and Downhill) in Val Gardena on December 2018. Two weeks later after defending successfully her World Championship title in Downhill in February 2019, she injured her left knee in a crash in Crans-Montana, the same knee she previously injured in 2017.
With bib number 30 Kajsa Vickhoff Lie finished in second place, 0.26 seconds behind Stuhec.
Italian Elena Curtoni rounded out the podium in third place 0.34 seconds off the pace.
Ragnhild Mowinckel won last season's Super-G in Cortina d'Ampezzo. The Norwegian edges Cornelia Huetter by +0.30 seconds. Marta Bassino finished in third place +0.47 seconds behind Mowinckel.
Downhill Preview
The three Women's World Cup Downhill races this season were won by three different women: Mikaela Shiffrin (St. Moritz), Jasmine Flury (Val d'Isère), and Sofia Goggia (Zauchensee).
Cornelia Hütter, Mirjam Puchner, and Stephanie Venier are hoping to be the first Austrian woman to win a World Cup Downhill since Nicole Schmidhofer won in Lake Louise on December 7, 2019.
Sofia Goggia claimed the 2022-2023 Downhill Crystal Globe. She also won the discipline Globe in 2017-2018, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022. She is the first woman to win the Downhill Globe in three successive seasons since Lindsey Vonn won six in a row between 2007-2008 and 2012-2013. Goggia joins the five women group to have won the Downhill Globe at least four times: Lindsey Vonn (8), Annemarie Moser-Pröll (7), Renate Götschl (5), Michela Figini (4) and Katja Seizinger (4).
The 30-year-old Italian speed Queen won five of the nine women's Downhill World Cup races last season (Lake Louise I and II, St. Moritz, Cortina d'Ampezzo, and Crans Montana). She was the first woman to win at least five in a single season since Lindsey Vonn achieved that in 2015-2016. Goggia was on the podium eight times, with five wins and three second places. The only time she did not finish in the Top-3 was in the second Downhill held in Cortina d'Ampezzo where she did not finish the race (DNF).
Since the start of last season, Goggia finished on the podium in ten of the 12 women's World Cup Downhill events (six victories and four-second places).
With 18 wins in the Downhill, Sofia Goggia is the active skier with the most victories in the Downhill in the Alpine Ski World Cup. In Women's World Cup Downhill events, only Lindsey Vonn (43), Annemarie Moser-Pröll (36), and Renate Götschl (24).
Sofia Goggia won the last Downhill in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, finished in second place in the first Downhill of the season in St. Moritz, and fourth in Val d'Isère.
Goggia can once again win two consecutive Downhill races in the World Cup as she did last season in St. Moritz (December 17, 2022) and Cortina d'Ampezzo (January 20, 2023).
Sofia Goggia won the Downhill in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2018, 2022, and 2023.
Federica Brignone finished in third place in St. Moritz. The 33-year-old Italian Skier has finished on the Downhill podium in the Alpine Ski World Cup six times but she never won a race in this discipline.
Brignone celebrated her 24th World Cup victory in Val d'Isère. She finished in the podium 63 times, 24 wins, in the World Cup.
Slovenian Ilka Stuhec won the last Downhill of the season at the Finals in Soldeu, her fourth podium of the season, and finished in second place in the Downhill standings. Stuhec confirmed in Andorra her come back at the very top of women’s Alpine Downhill skiing. The 33-year-old and double Downhill World Champion at St. Moritz 2017 and Are 2019, become the oldest winner in a women's World Cup Downhill race since Lindsey Vonn won in Åre on 14 March 2018 at age 33.
Kajsa Vickhof Lie became the first Norwegian woman to win a Downhill Alpine Ski World Cup when she won in Kvitfjell on 4 March. She had finished second in Cortina d'Ampezzo on 21 January.
Vickhof Lie can join the group of four other Norwegian women who have won multiple World Cup events: Andrine Flemmen (3), Ragnhild Mowinckel (3), Trine Rognmo-Bakke (2) and Nina Haver-Løseth (2).
Corinne Suter finished in third place in the Downhill standings. The Swiss Downhill Olympic Champion has won 5 races in the Alpine Ski World Cup (3 in Downhill, 2 n Super-G) and finished in the podium 24 times.
Suter took bronze in the Women's Downhill at the 47th Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel-Méribel.
In the 2019-2020 season, the 29-year-old skier won the Downhill and the Super-G Crystal Globes. In the next two seasons, she finished in second place (2020-2021 and 2021-2022) in the Downhill standings.
Downhill Gold medalist in Méribel Jasmine Flury won the second Downhill of the season in Val d'Isère.
It was her second victory in the Alpine Ski World Cup, and the first one in Downhill, following a victory in the Super-G in St. Moritz in December 2017. Flury's only podium in the Downhill was second place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in January 2022.
Jasmine Flury won the women's downhill world title in Méribel on February 11.
Lara Gut-Behrami has been participating in the Alpine Skiing World Cup for 16 years and has won 12 women's World Cup Downhills, the last one in Zauchensee in January 2022, for a total of 20 podiums in the discipline. She achieved in Soldeu at the Finals her only podium finish in the Downhill last season. In October Gut-Behrami won the Alpine Ski World Cup Opener in Sölden. She became the third woman to claim at least one World Cup win in 13 different seasons, after Renate Götschl (14) and Lindsey Vonn (13).
Stephanie Venier finished in second place in the Downhill in Zauchensee. it was her first Downhill podium since February 2020 in Crans Montana; in March last season, she was also on the podium in the Super-G in Kvitfjell.
Mirjam Puchner shared in Zauchensee the third place on the podium with Goggia's Italian teammate Nicol Delago.
Cornelia Hütter or Puchner can become the first woman representing Austria to win a World Cup Downhill event since Nicole Schmidhofer in Lake Louise on 7 December 2019.
Hütter won one World Cup Downhill race: in Lake Louise on December 1, 2017.
Puchner was on the podium seven times in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
For Delago it was her fourth career World Cup podium and the second one in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee.
Mikaela Shiffrin once again climbed to the top of the podium in Downhill in St. Moritz last December 9. Since 2016, Shiffrin has started in 21 Downhill events, finishing on the podium in 7 of them including 4 victories, the first one in Lake Louise in December 2017.
On January 21, 2024, in Jasná, Mikaela Shiffrin scored her 95th World Cup victory. She finished on the podium 150 times in 267 Alpine Ski World Cup starts. Only Ingemar Stenmark (155), has claimed more podiums in the World Cup than Mikaela Shiffrin.
Super-G Preview
The last four Women's World Cup Super-G races were won by four different women: Sofia Goggia (St. Moritz), Federica Brignone (Val d'Isère), Cornelia Hütter (Zauchensee), and Lara Gut-Behrami (Zauchensee).
The last six World Cup Super-G races held in Cortina d'Ampezzo were won by six different women: Lindsey Vonn (2016), Ilka Štuhec (2017), Lara Gut-Behrami (2018), Mikaela Shiffrin (2019), Elena Curtoni (2022), and Ragnhild Mowinckel (2023).
Sofia Goggia won the first Super-G of the season in St. Moritz. Goggia bested Austrian Cornelia Hütter by +0.95 seconds. Laura Gut-Behrami completed the podium (+1.02).
It was her first Super-G victory in almost two years. The last time she was on the top of the podium was in Val d'Isère on December 19, 2021.
The last woman to win the first two Super-G events of a World Cup season was Mikaela Shiffrin in 2018-2019 (Lake Louise and St. Moritz).
Federica Brignone won the second Super-G of the season held in the Oreiller-Killy course at La Daille in Val d'Isère. The 33-year-old set the best time in a challenging course setting to take the victory with a lead of 0.44 seconds over Kajsa Vickhoff Lie. Sofia Goggia rounded out the podium 0.59 seconds behind Brignone.
Last season, Federica Brignone finished in second place in the discipline standings.
With 9 wins in her career, Brignone is aiming to become the seventh woman to win at least 10 World Cup Super-G races, following Lindsey Vonn (28), Lara Gut-Behrami (20), Renate Götschl (17), Katja Seizinger (16), Carole Merle (12), and Michaela Dorfmeister (10).
Brignone is joint-second alongside Gustav Thöni and Sofia Goggia (24) for most World Cup wins by an Italian alpine skier, behind only Alberto Tomba (50).
Federica Brignone or Sofia Goggia could become the third Italian woman to win the Super-G in Cortina d'Ampezzo, following Isolde Kostner (1997), and Elena Curtoni (2022).
Cornelia Hütter won the first Super-G held in Zauchensee and gave Austria the first-season victory in the Women's Alpine Ski World Cup. She finished ahead of Kajsa Vickhoff Lie (+0.09) and Lara Gut-Behrami (+0.21). It was her fifth World Cup victory and the fourth in a Super-G.
Hütter, the leader of the Super-G standings, achieved on Sunday in the second Super-G held in Zauchensee her fourth podium of the season, the third one in the Super-G. She finished 25 times on the podium in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
Hütter can record three successive World Cup Super-G podium finishes for the first time.
Lara Gut-Behrami won the second Super-G held in Zauchensee, her third win of the season. She finished ahead of Cornelia Hütter (+0.25) and Mirjam Puchner (+0.26).
Gut-Behrami can become the first woman to win successive World Cup Super-G races since she won four in a row herself in 2021: St. Anton, Crans Montana, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen (2). After Garmisch, she won the gold medal in Super-G at the Alpine World Ski Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo.
The 32-year-old Swiss celebrated her 40th win in the Alpine Ski World Cup, the 20th in a Super-G. Gut-Behrami is the seventh woman to record at least 40 wins, and the second representing Switzerland, after Vreni Schneider (55). She has now caught up with the legendary Pirmin Zurbriggen.
It's her 81st podium in the World Cup, the third one in the Super-G this season.
Lindsey Vonn (28) is the only female skier to have celebrated as many Super-G World Cup victories as Gut-Behrami (20).
Gut-Behrami won the last Super-G of the season at the Finals in Soldeu and grabbed the Crystal Globe. It was the fourth time that the 32-year-old Swiss has won the Super-G Crystal Globe after winning the title of the speed discipline in 2013-2014, 2015-2016, and 2020-2021. Only Katja Seizinger and Lindsey Vonn, five times each, have won the Super-G Crystal Globe more times.
Gut-Behrami won the Super-G in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2014, and 2018.
Mirjam Puchner finished on the podium, in third position, in the Downhill held in Zauchensee. It's her 7th podium in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
25-year-old Kajsa Vickhoff Lie could become the fourth woman representing Norway to achieve a World Cup victory in the Super-G, after Merete Fjeldavlie (1992), Ingeborg Helen Marken (1996) and Ragnhild Mowinckel (2022 and 2023).
Lie's podium in Zauchensee was her third one in the Super-G in the World Cup. She is looking for her first victory in the discipline after winning her first World Cup Downhill in Kvitfjell last March.
Ragnhild Mowinckel rounded out the podium in the last race of the season in Soldeu, her 13th World Cup podium, in third place +0.47 seconds behind the Swiss, and finished in third place in the discipline standings. In a neat image of symmetry, Soldeu's Gut-Behrami-Brignone-Mowinckel race podium matched the Crystal Globe podium.
Two of her three World Cup wins were in Super-G: Courchevel-Meribel on March 17, 2022, and Cortina d'Ampezzo on January 22, 2023.
Marta Bassino is the current Super-G world champion. On February 8, 2023, in Courchevel-Méribel, she won her second World Champion title (she won gold at the Parallel in Cortina 2021). Bassino finished ahead of Mikaela Shiffrin (silver), Cornelia Hütter, and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie (shared bronze medal).
Bassino has yet to win a Super-G event at the World Cup. She finished on the podium four times, two second places (Bansko 2020, and St. Anton 2021), and two third places (St. Anton 2023, and Cortina d'Ampezzo 2023).
On December 18, 2022, Mikaela Shiffrin won her last World Cup Super-G in St. Moritz. Since 2015, she has started in 29 Super-G events, finishing on the podium in 10 of them, including 5 wins.
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