Sofia Goggia wins downhill World cup event at Lake Louise, fractions ahead of Corinne Suter

Sofia Goggia won on Friday afternoon at the World Cup women’s downhill at Lake Louise in Canada.

The Italian put down a time of 1:47.81 that nobody from a pack of 45 competitors was able to beat.

There were DNFs for Switzerland’s Stephanie Jenal, Andorran Cande Morenna and Austrian entrant Elisabeth Reisinger.

Goggia was pushed hard for her spot on the podium as Swiss athlete Corinne Suter was just 0.04 seconds behind, paying for a poor second sector when she lost a third of a second after initially being ahead on the time tracker.

Third went to Austria’s Cornelia Huetter, who also paid for a poor effort in the second sector compared to the 30-year-old winner.

Goggia has had an excellent 2022 so far, winning a gold at the Winter Olympics in China to add to a gold won four years before.

She also claimed her third title in the FIS World Cup in 2022, to add to other discipline titles the year earlier and in 2018, though she is yet to win the overall title.

Her success for now remains in the downhill event, but she has done well in the Super G to suggest that if she can find more improvement in the latter, as well as the Giant Slalom discipline where she is less impressive, then she will perhaps outperform her best overall season, when she came third in 2017.

Goggia has an excellent recent history at the Lake Louise track, last year winning her first career hat-trick, and while the second half of last season’s World Cup involvement was not to her desired high standards, she has started a fresh campaign competitively.

Second-placed Sutter, 28, was top of the rankings in the 2021 season for the downhill so will be hoping to get back to winning ways, and was also second in the Super G.

There remain more events to come at the Canadian track this weekend, providing the weather continues to hold up and provide suitable conditions, in a season that is already blighted by postponements due to poor weather.