Federica Brignone rewrote the history of Italian skiing after winning the alpine combined world title in the championship that opened the Alpine Skiing World Championships in Courchevel and Meribel.
For Italy, this is only the third medal in the women’s combination at the world championships and the first gold. Before today, the combined event was the only women’s event in which Italy had never won gold in the entire history of the World Alpine Skiing Championships since 1931. The country has only won two bronze medals in the past.
Federica Brignone’s gold also came with a huge dose of luck after the big favorite to win today, Mikaela Shiffrin, made a mistake and did not finish in the slalom. Just like at the Beijing 2022 Olympics, the American was too aggressive in the slalom and made a mistake just three doors before the final.
As well as opening the door for Federica Brignone to gold, Mikaela Shiffrin’s exit also opened the battle for the remaining medals in the first start of the World Championships in France. Today’s silver was won by Wendy Holdener (Switzerland), who finished 1.62 sec behind Federica Brignone, after only 0.04 sec off the Italian in the slalom. Still, the slalom expert progressed as much as 13 positions within the technical discipline to win her fifth medal of the planet championships. In the past, the Swiss has two titles in the combination of Saint Moritz 2017 and Ore 2019, a team title in 2019 and slalom silver in 2017.
Today’s bronze medal was won by Ricarda Haaser (Austria), who was eighth after the first heat but was third in the second to claim her first world championships medal. Her teammate Ramona Siebenhofer was one step away from the podium, and the third Austrian in today’s start, Franziska Gritsch, completed the top five.
A total of eight of the skiers withdrew from the slalom, including Lara Gut-Behrami (Switzerland) and Ragnhild Mowinckel (Norway), who were tied for second after the Super-G earlier today. However, their participation today was entirely for the purpose of preparation for the speed starts later this week. Apart from them, Sofia Goggia (Italy), Tessa Worley (France), Ilka Stuhec (Slovenia) and others took a similar step today.
