Val d'Isère (France) (AFP)

The Swiss Corinne Suter, holder of the world of the specialty, won Friday in Val d'Isère the first descent of the season on a very demanding track which caused many falls and interruptions.

The best skiers in the world, often from technical disciplines (Mikaela Shiffrin, Federica Brignone, Marta Bassino, Petra Vlhova ...), are used to slipping to the top of the rankings in speed as well.

Impossible on Friday under the sun of Val d'Isère where the Oreiller-Killy slope, between pure sliding parts and very delicate passages, smiled on pure specialists.

Corinne Suter edged Italian Olympic champion Sofia Goggia by 11 / 100th of a second and American Breezy Johnson by 20 / 100th, who climbed at 24 on her first World Cup podium.

The two-time Slovenian world champion Ilka Stuhec is 4th at 65 / 100th.

Corinne Suter, reigning vice-world champion, thus validates at the age of 26 her 7th podium in two years on a World Cup downhill, her 2nd victory.

She confirms her new grip on speed (she also holds the super-G globe) and her clear progress, as she came close to having a leg amputated following a blood infection in June 2018 .

- Schmidhofer injured -

You had to take risks in Val d'Isère to play in front, but not too much: a sloping left turn shortly after a difficult jump in the second part of the track caused five falls.

Austrian Nicole Schmidhofer, winner of the small downhill globe in 2019, rushed to more than 100 km / h straight into the safety nets.

After an interruption of about twenty minutes, she was evacuated on a stretcher, her left leg isolated, holding her head in her hands.

This passage was also fatal to the defending champion of the big globe, the Italian Federica Brignone, or the Swiss Joana Haelen, who left standing.

Olympic champion Sofia Goggia herself was almost trapped, but like a tightrope walker or the American Bode Miller in his heyday, she made up for a mistake on this jump, which surely cost her the victory, to finish with a bang.

The Slovakian Petra Vlhova, very uncomfortable on Friday (26th at 2 sec 36) keeps the lead in the general classification with 150 points ahead of the American Mikaela Shiffrin, who bypassed the weekend speed (second descent Saturday, super-G Sunday).

© 2020 AFP