The winner of the day, who won her second World Cup victory at 30 and her first in Super-G, summed up the state of mind of the Italian colony at the microphone of RAI: ​​"It's a sweet day -bitter".

"I'm very happy, I put everything I can do into this race, but I'm sorry for Sofia," said the Italian, who beat the Austrian Tamara Tippler by 9/100 and the Swiss Michelle Gisin of 24/100.

"SuperSofia" has again fallen heavily, eight days after a spectacular run off the track during the descent of Zauchensee (Austria), less than two weeks before the Winter Olympics (February 4-20).

The reigning Olympic downhill champion was able to get up and reach the finish area on her skis, but the examinations carried out in the afternoon in Milan confirmed the fears: she suffers from a "sprained knee left, with a partial lesion of the cruciate ligament already operated on in 2013" and a "small fracture of the fibula", indicated in the evening the Italian Federation.

"Unwelcome stoppage"

However, there is no question of giving up the descent of the Games, scheduled for February 15, after having missed the Cortina Worlds a year ago due to a right knee injury.

"I'm sorry, it's an unwelcome stoppage at such an important time in the season, but in the next few hours I will start physiotherapy to try to defend the Olympic title in the discipline that I love the most. “, said in a press release the 29-year-old Bergamasque, who must be the Italian flag bearer in Beijing.

Despite this declared desire to compete in Beijing, this injury is a blow to his ambitions for the World Cup, in particular by making him miss the speed trials in Garmisch-Partenkirchen next weekend, but also at the Olympics, since 'it will not a priori be restored for the Super-G scheduled for February 11.

Italian Sofia Goggia is recovering from her fall during the Cortina d'Ampezzo super-G, January 23, 2022 Jure MAKOVEC AFP

But Italy retains resources in this specialty, with Curtoni third Azzurra to win this season in the Super-G after Goggia's two victories and Federica Brignone's two.

The latter had to settle for 4th place on Sunday, 32/100 behind the winner of the day, but consoled herself by taking the lead in the specialty ranking.

Super-G world champion, Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami, took only 13th place (83/100) and American Mikaela Shiffrin, leader of the World Cup general classification, 16th (1 sec 01/100).

© 2022 AFP