The World Cup season starts with a bang for Federica Brignone. The 34-year-old from Valle d’Aosta has in fact obtained her 28th career success which confirms her as the most successful Italian ever.
All in the always difficult giant slalom of Soelden, the opening race of a competitive year that promises to be amazing for her and which will focus on the World Championships in February in Saalbach, on a track that the Italian has already tamed in the giant slalom last March, winning to the Finals.
Third after the first heat, Federica won in 2’16″06 after a superlative second test, all on the attack, despite slower and more difficult snow due to the hot Foehn wind. ‘Fedè, as her teammates call her, she kept up the pace on the wall and took off on the long final stretch, so much so that she even left the American super champion Mikaela Shiffrin in the lead after the opening heat, but collapsed in the second, unable to catch up. go beyond fifth place.
Of course, it’s too early to talk about it and superstition is a must, but Brignone is the only Italian to have won the big world cup in 2020. And last year it came second in the general classification thanks to its increasingly consolidated versatility. Which at least suggests that his second Crystal Cup could be an absolutely attainable goal if he continues to compete as in Solden.
For Federica – who achieved her first success in Soelden in 2015 – it is the fifth podium in her career on the Rettenbach glacier. New Zealander Alice Robinson came second in 2’16″22, while the young Austrian Julia Scheib came surprisingly third in 2’17″13. Piedmontese Marta Bassino, fifth after the first heat, finished 13th in 2’17″91, also in difficulty on this hot surface.
The third Italian in the ranking is the Venetian Asja Zenere, 20th in 2’19″21. Tomorrow in Solden it’s the turn of the men’s giant. Highly anticipated, the great Austrian champion Marcel Hirscher, holder, returns to the white circus under the flag of Holland. of eight World Cups won consecutively. Italy, with Filippo Della Vite returning from an injury in training with a fractured finger, will instead focus above all on the veteran Luca De Aliprandini and the Gardena native Alex Vinatzer.