Goggia wins second straight downhill with Cortina victory

Italian Sofia Goggia took her first-ever home snow World Cup victory on Friday after skiing the fastest run on the Olympia delle Tofane in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Lindsey Vonn, who led both training runs heading into Friday, survived a near crash with the lead to finish in second place at 0.47 seconds off Goggia's pace. In her first Cortina downhill, Mikaela Shiffrin produced a clean and composed run to grab the final podium spot in third, 0.84 seconds from the win.

Flat light and higher speeds than in the training runs created a challenge for the world's best skiers. At the beginning of the race, three of the first four starters failed to complete the course.

Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway produced a career-best downhill result in sixth place.

Julia Mancuso, the most decorated U.S. Olympic female alpine athlete, skied her retirement run in costume, donning a Wonder Woman suit and cape. In her 399 World Cup starts, she finished on the podium 36 times – also collecting four Olympic medals and five World Championships medals over the course of her lengthy career. Degenerative hip problems prevented her from being able to ski at the level necessary to qualify for her fifth Olympic Winter Games, so she opted to announce her retirement at the site of her first World Cup podium in 2006.

The ladies will contest another downhill at Cortina d'Ampezzo on Saturday starting at 10:00 CET.

Full results from today's race are available here.