Twelve years after her silver medal in giant slalom at the World Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Germany), Federica Brignone created a sensation by winning the combined on Monday, February 6 – adding a super-G and a a slalom – world championships, where the big favorite, Mikaela Shiffrin was expected. The Italian thus won the first gold medal of these Worlds organized in France, in Méribel and Courchevel (Savoie), until February 19.
An authoritative winner of the super-G in the morning, Brignone secured the title by taking second place in the slalom in the afternoon. In this second event, Mikaela Shiffrin cracked three doors from the finish. As she made up time with each intermediate score, the American came off the track a few meters from the line.
All eyes were on the skier from Colorado, as she dominates the discipline. After erasing, at the end of January, the record of 82 World Cup victories of her compatriot Lindsey Vonn, the American could afford a seventh world title in alpine skiing, ten years after the first. The podium of the day is completed by the Swiss Wendy Holdener and the Austrian Ricarda Haaser.
Combined, the unloved
Tied for second in the super-G in the morning, the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami and the Norwegian Ragnhild Mowinckel, like six other of their opponents including the French Tessa Worley, did not bother to show up at the start of the slalom. afternoon. A decision which once again questions the relevance of the combined, a discipline whose formula has evolved several times and which, since the 2020-2021 season, no longer appears on the program of the World Cup.
“I love this event, but it’s a lot of work for a single round in the whole year.recognizes the Frenchwoman Laura Gauché, 7e from the handset of the Worlds, to the microphone of France Télévisions. We have to do it in summer, fall, winter, even between races. (…) So that they [la Fédération internationale de ski] postpone several events in the World Cup and during major events, or that they remove it completely. »
The men’s event, contested according to the same formula, is scheduled for Tuesday, February 7, in Couchevel. The local child Alexis Pinturault, a versatile skier, could, in this discipline, unlock the medal counter for the French team.