Under the sun of Méribel, the 31-year-old Ticino woman had missed the bronze of the super-G by 4 hundredths and by 9 hundredths that of the giant, after having flown over the previous world championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo in early 2021 by winning the gold in both disciplines as well as bronze in the downhill.

"At the sporting level, I think I produced good skiing, but something was missing in each race", she summed up Saturday with the Swiss press, admitting to having "need more time to digest things" after more than ten years at a very high level.

Because if the ski world has its eyes riveted on the American Mikaela Shiffrin, who is only one victory away from the historic record of 86 World Cup successes of the Swede Ingemar Stenmark, Lara Gut-Behrami, second most beautiful track record in activity with 36 victories, is also one of the legends of this sport.

Absent Shiffrin

And the story is not over for the skier from Comano, who "would like to go to the Saalbach Worlds in 2025, even if it is still early to plan".

Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami in the arrival area of ​​the super-G in St. Anton am Arlberg (Austria), counting for the Alpine Skiing World Cup, on January 14, 2023 © BARBARA GINDL / APA/AFP/Archives

"Some days, I have no more energy while the next day, I would still like to compete in a thousand races in my career", she confided on Saturday, also upset by the death at 37 of the former Italian downhiller. Elena Fanchini, to whom she was very close.

In the absence of Shiffrin, who prances in the lead of the big globe race but skips the Crans-Montana stage, and the Slovak Petra Vlhova, who has a 60-point lead over Gut-Behrami and does not compete in the speed events, the Swiss can regain second place in the general classification by Sunday.

Above all, after five out of eight super-Gs scheduled this season, she is in ambush behind the Norwegian Ragnhild Mowinckel, 30 points behind in the ranking of her favorite discipline, which has already earned her three small globes (2014, 2016, 2021 ).

Will the Swiss woman once again be able to speak about her exceptional reading of trajectories and her sense of sliding on the Mont-Lachaux track, where she had won two downhills in quick succession in 2020 and the super-G the Next year ?

Flury on its way?

Despite her three successes in the Valais resort, which will host the world championships in 2027, she maintains a complex relationship with Crans-Montana, its organization and therefore its public.

In 2019, believing she was back on the podium after two years plagued by injuries and doubts, the Ticino woman was ranked 4th, then 3rd, then dropped three days later to 6th place after her time was corrected, because of a stopwatch. capricious.

Two years later, she called the track a "disaster" during the first downhill training, prompting racing boss Marius Robyr to cut off the speaker and music when the champion arrived during the second training.

In addition to these tumultuous memories and the snow showers announced this weekend, Gut-Behrami will have to face stiff competition on Saturday in the downhill, a discipline in which she is an outsider.

Italian Sofia Goggia during the downhill of the 2023 Alpine Skiing World Championships on February 11, 2023 in Méribel © Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP/Archives

In addition to the triple holder of the specialty globe (2018, 2021, 2022), the Italian Sofia Goggia, at the top of the discipline's ranking and almost unbeatable when she stays on the track, the Swiss Jasmine Flury could shine on the launched from her surprise world title in Méribel, she who had until then only climbed on two World Cup podiums in her nine-year career.

Program for the Crans-Montana World Cup stage:

Saturday: descent at 11:00 a.m.

Sunday: super-G at 11 a.m.

© 2023 AFP