Goggia, Feuz take downhill titles
Sofia Goggia of Italy celebrates with the crystal globe for winning the FIS downhill World Cup title, after placing second in the women’s race of the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden, yesterday. (Inset) Beat Feuz of Switzerland poses with the men’s downhill crystal globe after finishing third in the final race.
SOFIA Goggia followed up her Olympic downhill gold medal by claiming the season-long World Cup title in the discipline yesterday.
Lindsey Vonn narrowly beat Goggia to win the race at the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden, but the American still ended up 3 points behind in the standings.
The only other Italian woman to win the downhill title was Isolde Kostner in 2001 and 2002.
In a shortened race that was more like a sprint than a full downhill, Vonn clocked 55.65 seconds to finish 0.06 ahead of Goggia, her friend and rival.
It was Vonn’s 82nd World Cup win, moving within four of Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86.
It was Vonn’s fourth straight World Cup downhill win, after settling for bronze at the Pyeongchang Olympics behind Goggia and Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway.
After crossing the line first and pushing Goggia down to second, Vonn needed another racer to finish ahead of Goggia but the help never came.
American skier Alice McKennis came closest but finished third, 0.28 behind.
It was McKennis’ second career podium result, more than five years after she won a downhill in St Anton, Austria.
Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein, the only other woman with a chance of claiming the title, finished seventh in the race and third in the standings, 115 points behind Goggia.
Later, Beat Feuz finished ahead of Olympic champion Aksel Lund Svindal to win the World Cup downhill title.
Austrians Vincent Kriechmayr and Matthias Mayer shared the race win, finishing 0.04 seconds ahead of Feuz and 0.12 ahead of Svindal.
In the discipline standings, Feuz ended up 70 points ahead of Svindal, thanks in large part to his victories in Lake Louise, Alberta; Wengen, Switzerland; and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
He becomes the first Swiss racer to claim the title since Didier Cuche won the last of his four crystal globes in 2011.
