After years of placings and missed opportunities, Laura Pirovano’s moment has finally arrived. The Italian achieved two victories in 24 hours in the World Cup downhill in Val di Fassa, also prevailing in the second race on the Volata slope at Passo San Pellegrino.
For the Italian skier, these are the first career victories after 29 placings in the top ten, of which eleven in the top five, without ever reaching the podium. After yesterday’s success, obtained by beating Emma Aicher by just one hundredth, Pirovano conceded an encore by beating the Austrian Cornelia Huetter by another hundredth. Third place for the Swiss Corinne Suter, five hundredths behind.
“I thought it was a joke”
“There has often been talk of bad luck, today I evened the score,” Laura Pirovano declared to Rai Sport at the end of the race which allowed her to overtake Aicher herself at the top of the specialty World Cup, with only one race left to go.
«For now I don’t want to think about it – he added – there is a mix of emotions that I struggle to manage. I’m over the moon.” The victory, explained the Italian, was partly unexpected: «Today when I reached the finish line I believed it even less than yesterday, because I didn’t feel as good as I did on Friday. The first success gave me many emotions but also took away my energy. When I saw the green light again for a penny I thought it was a joke.”
The other blue ones
Among the Italians, Nicol Delago finished in ninth place, 1″03 behind the winner, while Sofia Goggia placed eleventh at 1″05. «We are all very close even today and therefore we must insist because, as we saw with Lolli, sooner or later everything comes back», commented Delago.
Goggia instead praised his teammate: «She deserves these results». The champion from Bergamo added that she «found better sensations, even if I couldn’t expect to completely overturn everything. I also went down quite restrained, to take better care of my skiing.”
The other Italians further back: Nadia Delago 17th at 1″24, Roberta Melesi 23rd at 1″58, Sara Thaler 25th at 1″63 and Elena Curtoni 26th at 1″91. Also competing were Asja Zenere (31st at 2″20) and Ilaria Ghisalberti (41st at 3″01).
The program of races in Val di Fassa includes the super-G on Sunday, with a start set at 10.45.