Next weekend the Women's World Cup is back to Cortina, the ‘Queen of the Dolomites’, with two days of action: a Downhill, and a Super-G race.
Cortina d'Ampezzo (ITA)
January 18th Downhill / Women 11:00 CET
January 19th Super-G / Women 11:00 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 cancel the event.
The winter sports 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, 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 in the Olympia delle Tofane Stephanie Venier claimed her first World Cup win in five years. Lara Gut-Behrami finished in second place 0.39 seconds behind Venier. A trio of skiers made up of Sofia Goggia, Christina Ager, and Valerie Grenier finished in third place 0.71 seconds off the pace.
In the second Downhill held in Cortina, Ragnhild Mowinckel achieved her first victory in the Downhill in the Alpine Ski World Cup. The Norwegian finished ahead of Jacqueline Wiles (+0.35) and Sofia Goggia (+0.44).
In 2024, Lara Gut-Behrami won Sunday's Super-G in Cortina d'Ampezzo. She finished ahead of Stephanie Venier (+0.21) and Romane Miradoli (+0.41). It was her third victory in the Super-G in the Olympia delle Tofane (2014, 2018, and 2024). She also won the gold medal in the Super-G World Championships held in Cortina d'Ampezzo in February 2021.
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