After a trio of runner-up finishes this season, Olympic champion Sofia Goggia of Italy stood atop the podium in Saturday’s controversial women’s downhill at Crans-Montana.
Meanwhile Nicole Schmidhofer is in a commanding position to win the downhill title after padding her advantage.
But the Austrian was bumped to fourth due to a timekeeping issue at the finish line – yes in Switzerland – that affected several Swiss racers after initially being on the podium in third.
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Goggia clocked in at one minute, 29.77 seconds.
According to governing body FIS, it was 0.36 seconds faster than Joana Haehlen and 0.45 seconds faster than Lara Gut-Behrami, two of the starters whose times were affected.
Schmidhofer – whose run wasn’t affected – was 0.52 seconds adrift.
The downhill took place days after an avalanche killed a 34-year-old French ski patroller in the Swiss resort.
Two Americans missing
Overall leader Mikaela Shiffrin skipped this weekend to recover from the chest cold she competed with at the World Championships in Are, Sweden while there was another notable American missing – Lindsey Vonn.
One of alpine skiing’s best ever racers, the injury hit Vonn retired after winning bronze in the downhill in Sweden.
Skiers often have to contend with injuries, Goggia included.
She sustained an ankle injury in pre-season training and only returned to the circuit in January.
The 26-year-old came second in the super G in Sweden along with at the downhill and super G in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany in January before going one better in Crans-Montana.
She will no doubt be one to watch next season.
For now, Schmidhofer appears well on her way to a maiden discipline title, now leading Ramona Siebenhofer by 60 points after her compatriot finished 23rd Saturday and Ilka Stuhec by nearly 100.
Stuhec – the downhill champion at the last two World Championships – crashed but appeared to be okay as she continued to race down the course.
