Gut-Behrami strikes again

Lara Gut-Behrami picked up right where she left off after the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. The triple-medal winner in Cortina also won the first race after the World Champs, at the Audi FIS World Cup in Val di Fassa (ITA).

Since the start of the New Year, Gut-Behrami has been virtually untouchable. She has made the podium in all of the last six World Cup races and earned the victory four times during the streak.

But today’s victory did not come easily for the Swiss star, she earned the victory a mere 0.02 seconds ahead of Austrian Ramona Siebenhofer. Coming in third place was Gut’s teammate and downhill gold medalist from Cortina, Corinne Suter 0.26 seconds off the pace.

Today was the World Cup debut for Val di Fassa as a host as the athletes enjoyed the challenge of conquering a new course. The Italian resort hosted the 2019 FIS Alpine Junior World Championships and was ready to spring in as a replacement venue after the Olympic Test Events in Beijing had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.

The new course, coupled with the extremely warm temperatures provided a large variation in results for the racers. All of the top-five finishers today had bib numbers no higher than seven. And outside the top-five finishers, the time difference grew wider with a half second difference between fifth place finisher Breezy Johnson and sixth-place finisher Kajska Vickhoff Lie.

With today’s win, Gut-Behrami took over the lead in the overall World Cup standings, now holding a 29-point lead over Petra Vlhova, whose ninth-place finish today wasn’t enough to keep her in the lead.

Today was just the start of a long speed weekend in the Trentino region of Italy. Val di Fassa will host a second downhill tomorrow starting at 11:00, followed by a super-G on Sunday.