An Olympic drama with announcement
The devastating skiing madness of Sofia Goggia
01/24/2022, 7:08 p.m
Sofia Goggia always drives at the limit – and often beyond. The Italian raced to Olympic gold in the downhill in 2018, and now she wanted to crown herself again in the supreme discipline in China. But whether it can start at all is an open question. Because she overdid it again.
These Olympic miracles have already happened. The merciless Austrian Hermann Maier had managed to do just that. At the 1998 games in Nagano, Japan, the man who had redefined the risk of alpine skiing with his headless head and collar flew off in such a merciless manner on the downhill that his TV colleagues from the Alpine republic didn’t see anything in the live reports other than pleading “For God’s sake” for a few seconds. In fact, for a few anxious moments, it is to be feared that Maier is seriously, seriously or even life-threateningly injured. But Maier, this monster athlete, escapes almost unharmed – and continues his heroic story a few days later: Maier wins gold in the super-G and giant slalom.
Whether and which story about the daring Sofia Goggia will be told in a few weeks has been completely open again since this Sunday. Actually, the big anthems were already ready for the Italian to sing (and probably no one sings about their heroes more heartrendingly and emotionally than the Italians), but then the 29-year-old crashed brutally in the Super-G in the snow. The speed queen struck her legs at the home race in Cortina d’Ampezzo, having been caught in turbulence moments earlier. But Goggia wouldn’t be Goggia if she minimized the risk after that scare. She kept the ski on the most brutal track – and was punished. The pictures she delivered were not as shocking as those of Maier’s departure. But they didn’t bode well. Those who hoped for the all-clear because they skied to the finish a little later were only partially relieved in the evening.
A very, very bitter diagnosis
The diagnosis for this winter’s dominator: sprained knee joint, torn cruciate ligament, a “small fracture” in the fibula. The dream of defending the title in the Olympic downhill, the dream of a speed double (downhill and super-G) is hanging by a thread, if you will. “Winter Olympics on the brink, Italy fears for Super Sofia,” the “Corriere dello Sport” headlined its worried text. “Tuttosport”, on the other hand, tried a national encouragement. Nothing is lost yet, “the miracle is still possible.” Goggia, that was (or is) the biggest medal hope in the country. She has been too dominant in the two fastest alpine disciplines for years. From time to time, she ventures into the spheres of the legendary American Lindsey Vonn with her ski spectacle. At some point she was so superior that she would have preferred to duel with the men in a real race. And so with Goggia in the start house, the only question that often arises is: Who will be the best of the rest? Especially on the descent.
There have already been five races this season in the fastest discipline of the World Cup. And whenever Goggia has reached the goal, she was at the top of the podium. That was four times. In Zauchensee it knocked her out. Once again she was too risky after a wild ride. It only knows one mode: Attack. The limit as a reminder? Doesn’t catch on with her sustainably. That she was 19th in Zauchensee the day after the fall in the Super-G, maybe a moment of pause? Rather not. The “Neue Züricher Zeitung” wrote a few years ago: If Goggia falls, she mentally grabs the eraser. That’s the way it is. In Cortina, just a week later, she triumphed in the downhill after a wild hara-kiri. It was only thanks to her outstanding acrobatic skills that she was able to stay on her skis for a while without obviously still having control over the boards. What a ride. Luckily he had gone well.
Goggia takes up the fight
The learning effect? Equals zero. Happiness had hardly been captured when it was challenged again. And so a start at the Olympic Games in Beijing becomes a medical thriller. The Super-G will be held on February 11 (she is also the favorite there, but has significantly more competition), four days later the downhill is due. Actually unimaginable that the 29-year-old can be at the start with her medical bull. “It’s a setback that I didn’t want in such an important phase of the season,” said Goggia from the hospital, but she will do everything to “defend the title in the discipline I love most. ” So far, only the German ski legend Katja Seizinger (1994/98) has managed to do that on the downhill.
The impending end? It would be a bitter deja vu for the Italian after a very strange mishap in Garmisch-Partenkirchen 2021 brought about the home World Cup in Cortina last year. Because the Super-G had been canceled, Goggia let off steam with her teammates on a despicable tourist track. Extremely fast on the way, she crashed into a soft pile in the deep snow on the way to the hotel. The shin was broken, the home World Cup lost its most prominent protagonist. Actually, she had wanted to learn from this brief, so careless moment. She’d wanted to take things a little less daring this winter. She had wanted to recalibrate her uncompromising risk assessment. Her career had already given plenty of reason for a rethink. Again and again Goggia got tangled up in the safety fence. Sometimes more, sometimes less seriously injured. The cruciate ligament has been hit several times, the thigh, the shin, the arm.
This Saturday at the home descent in Cortina she also triumphed after the accident in Zauchensee “with 60 percent”, as she confessed after the race. So why always this maximum risk? Looking back on his fall of the century, Hermann Maier once said: “I wanted to win the race at all costs. I was so greedy for it, mainly because I had dominated the whole season.” These are thoughts that Goggia is also believed to be capable of without a doubt…