Val d'Isère (France) (AFP)

Italian Olympic champion Sofia Goggia returned to victory on Saturday in the second World Cup downhill in Val d'Isère the day after her second place.

Goggia found on the podium the Swiss Corinne Suter (2nd at 24 hundredths of a second), winner Friday, and the American Breezy Johnson (at 27 hundredths), 3rd for the second time in a row.

A little over a kilometer from Val d'Isère, in Le Fornet, an enormous pile of snow blocks the road which arches to attack the slopes of the Col de l'Iseran, well known to the riders of the Tour de France.

A big obstacle that prevents anyone from climbing, but surely would not scare Sofia Goggia.

Jumps, overhanging turns, an icy slope that hammers the skis, nothing on the Oreiller-Killy slope, already downhill by the men last week, has bothered the Olympic champion, the quintessential thrill skier with a stunning style.

The 28-year-old Italian, however, left timidly for her 8th World Cup victory, on the starting flat, the simplest part, where she only achieved the 31st fastest time.

But a festival and a total commitment in the most difficult portions signed her big comeback in the foreground when she had not won in the downhill since February 2019.

- A modified turn -

"La Goggia", as it is called on the other side of the Alps, comes out of a relatively disappointing season ended by a broken arm in early February in Garmisch (Germany), and extended into the spring by the horror of Covid -19 which hit his city of Bergamo hard.

Holder of the downhill globe title, the Swiss Corinne Suter confirmed her great condition with her second place ahead of the American Breezy Johnson, very comfortable in Val d'Isère.

The only big surprise on Saturday, the Norwegian Kajsa Vickhoff Lie, who started with the bib 30, made a small mistake at the end of the course which cost her the podium (4th to 33 / 100th).

The tricky turn on landing a jump that caused five falls on Friday, including the very impressive one for Austria's Nicole Schmidhofer, was changed on Saturday.

The supporter of the big Italian globe Federica Brignone, who fell on Friday, did not take the start.

The Slovakian Petra Vlhova, again uncomfortable (33rd), keeps the lead of the general now 127 points ahead of Michelle Gisin, 9th on Saturday, before the super-G scheduled for Sunday.

The only Frenchwoman to score points, Tiffany Gauthier took 27th place.

© 2020 AFP