Ski World Cup 2017: Dominator wins

Image: Ilka Stuhec in flight (Copyright: Ski WM St. Moritz 2017)

After the surprising injury of Lara Gut during the run-in for the slalom run of the alpine combined, a favorite and the most promising Swiss candidate for a medal place dropped out. The favorites for the World Cup podium in the women's downhill were quickly identified. First and foremost there was Ilka Stuhec from Slovenia, the dominator of the downhill discipline in the World Cup, then certainly Lindsey Vonn despite her handicap, Tina Weirather and Sofia Goggia, who belonged to the narrow circle of favorites for gold.

The newly crowned World Champion in Super-G, Nicole Schmidhofer, started the race with the number 1. Unfortunately she could not repeat the good performance from the Super-G race, she ended in 16th place. Tina Weirather started the race with number 3, but her run was not completely successful, she already knew that at the finish, in the end it was enough for 10th place. Sofia Goggia started with number 5. The Italian makes no compromises and knows nothing but full risk when she goes into the race. But this risk-taking was almost her undoing. Suddenly her skis crossed on a turn exit, which almost brought her down. Only an artistic interlude saved her and kept her in the race, she could no longer maintain her fabulous lead of a remarkable 0.73 seconds. She crossed the finish line with a narrow lead of 0.2 seconds over Laurenne Ross. With this mistake she missed out on a place in the medal, which she thought was already safe, and she was visibly annoyed. Stephanie Venier followed for Austria, who until then had been at home in the top 20 in the downhill. But in this World Cup race she seemed to be able to mobilize unimagined strength, skied 12 hundredths faster than Goggia and took the lead. Now the Slovenian downhill dominator of this winter followed and was able to meet the expectations of the spectators and fans. She took the lead by a remarkable 0.4 seconds and thus claimed the world championship title. Now Lindsey Vonn was still on top. She gave it her all, but her long absence from the ski circus was noticeable, but as spirited as ever, she took 3rd place with a lead of 7 hundredths of a second ahead of Sofia Goggia and won the bronze medal.

Much was predictable, much came as expected, only the artistry interlude of Sofia Goggia led to a big "Ohhhhh", unfortunately she lost a medal place because of it, which she deserved quite well.

</p> <p>Rank	Start number	Athlete	Travel time	Distance
1	7	STUHEC Ilka	1:32.85
2	6	VENIER Stephanie	1:33.25	+0.40
3	9	VONN Lindsey	1:33.30	+0.45
4	5	GOGGIA Sofia	1:33.37	+0.52
5	4	ROSS Laurenne	1:33.57	+0.72
6	10	SCHEYER Christine	1:33.79	+0.94
7	11	SUTER Fabienne	1:33.88	+1.03
8	28	GISIN Michelle	1:33.89	+1.04
9	14	SIEBENHOFER Ramona	1:33.97	+1.12
10	3	WEIRATHER Tina	1:34.03	+1.18
11	13	REBENSBURG Victoria	1:34.10	+1.25
12	18	FLURY Jasmine	1:34.36	+1.51
12	2	WILES Jacqueline	1:34.36	+1.51
14	8	FANCHINI Elena	1:34.39	+1.54
15	16	JOHNSON Breezy	1:34.49	+1.64
16	1	SCHMIDHOFER Nicole	1:34.61	+1.76
17	17	KLING Kajsa	1:34.64	+1.79
18	19	SUTER Corinne	1:34.65	+1.80
19	20	STUFFER Verena	1:34.81	+1.96
20	12	MOWINCKEL Ragnhild	1:34.91	+2.06
21	24	LEDECKA Ester	1:34.96	+2.11
22	15	SNARF Johanna	1:35.05	+2.20
23	23	FERK Marusa	1:35.23	+2.38
24	22	LYSDAHL Kristin	1:35.26	+2.41
25	25	GAUTHIER Tiffany	1:35.39	+2.54
25	21	TVIBERG Maria Therese	1:35.39	+2.54
27	32	PROKOPYEVA Aleksandra	1:35.46	+2.61
28	30	COLETTI Alexandra	1:35.53	+2.68
29	31	RIIS-JOHANNESSEN Kristina	1:35.72	+2.87
29	29	WEIDLE Kira	1:35.72	+2.87
31	26	MIRADOLI novels	1:35.84	+2.99
32	27	GRENIER Valerie	1:35.86	+3.01
33	33	HOERNBLAD Lisa	1:36.69	+3.84
34	35	KLICNAROVA Pavla	1:37.87	+5.02
35	34	PAULATHOVA Katerina	1:38.02	+5.17
36	36	BARAHONA Noelle	1:38.59	+5.74
37	38	SIMARI BIRKNER Macarena	1:39.08	+6.23
38	37	SCHLEPER Sarah	1:42.59	+9.74</p> <p>