Goggia back on top and into the record books

All season long, Sofia Goggia and Federica Brignone have been competing with each other — largely on separate slopes — for the title of the most successful Italian women's World Cup ski racer of all time.

On Sunday they took the battle to the same downhill course in Crans Montana, and their 1-2 finish resulted in Goggia breaking their tie and becoming the first Italian woman to win 22 World Cup races.

It wasn't the comfortable victory it looked like being at one stage, however, as Brignone almost stole the win in improving weather conditions with bib 21, taking the lead in the mid-section and eventually finishing just 0.15 seconds behind her teammate.

But Goggia held on for an impressive victory that came after she failed to complete the only training run earlier in the week in the Swiss resort and after all racers endured Saturday's cancellation and a 37-minute delay to the start of Sunday's race because of fog.

"It was really a relief for me because I crashed in the one and only training run at the fifth gate," Goggia said. "I didn't try the slope, I didn't know exactly where to go."

"I started (to) analyse and watch the other girls in the past few days and I could learn how to do this downhill. So basically I said to myself at the start gate: 'OK, do your race, stay on your feet and do the line that the coaches told me.'"

With the victory, Goggia reaffirmed her position as the world's best downhiller after she was disqualified in the world championships downhill race earlier this month for straddling a gate.

"It was important, not the victory itself, but to do a good performance, and this is what I was aiming for," Goggia said of recovering from her world championships disappointment as the World Cup tour resumed.

It was Goggia's fifth win in seven World Cup downhill races this season and her 17th career downhill triumph, lifting her into equal fourth on the all-time list with Switzerland's Michela Figini.

The skier at the top of that list with 43 downhill victories, Goggia's good friend Lindsey Vonn, was the last woman to win five downhill races in one World Cup season, in 2015/16, until Goggia matched that achievement on Sunday.

By contrast, Brignone has never won a World Cup downhill and even though she remained stuck on 21 World Cup wins in all disciplines, the newly crowned Alpine combined world champion was delighted with her first downhill podium in over three years.

"I'm so proud of what I did today," the super-G and giant slalom specialist said. "I tried my best doing my characteristics of a GS skier and to let my ski go and slide and make a lot of speed."

That speed carried her to her 54th World Cup podium — and almost her 22nd win that ultimately went to Goggia instead.

"I was surprised and really happy (after seeing that she had skied into second place) but when I saw the 0.15 I said, 'Only 0.15? I could have done really some turns better,' but that's skiing," Brignone said.

"I would have loved to win my first downhill but I'm already really happy."

Starting even later than Brignone with bib 26, France's Laura Gauche skied into third place, 0.41 seconds behind Goggia, for her first World Cup podium in any discipline.

"It's amazing, I didn't expect that," Gauche said. "It was a surprise obviously, a very good surprise.

"I feel lucky with the visibility. I know I had to attack the slope because of the visibility so that's just what I said at the start: 'Attack and see what happens.'"

With only two downhill races remaining this season, Goggia has an almost unassailable 179-point lead over Slovenia's Ilka Stuhec, who finished ninth on Sunday, in the race for the downhill globe.

But with three speed races scheduled in the Norwegian resort of Kvitfjell next weekend and Mikaela Shiffrin resuming her quest for a record-tying 86th World Cup win after skipping Crans Montana, there's still plenty of drama left in this remarkable season.