Brignone closes gap on super-G leader Gut-Behrami in race won by Germany's Aicher

The Associated Press

· Posted: Mar 13, 2025 8:17 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago

Federica Brignone closed the spread to person Lara Gut-Behrami successful the World Cup super-G standings to 45 points successful a contention connected a shortened people won by German prodigy Emma Aicher connected Thursday successful La Thuile, Italy.

Earning her 2nd vocation win, Aicher edged Sofia Goggia by 0.06 seconds.

Racing adjacent to her Italian hometown successful the Aosta Valley, Brignone had a chaotic thrust to decorativeness third, 0.39 down Aicher but 0.08 up of fourth-placed Gut-Behrami.

Lauren Macuga, the American bronze medallist from past month's satellite championships, was 0.55 backmost successful fifth, portion Canada's Val Grenier finished successful 23rd place.

Brignone astir mislaid her equilibrium aboriginal connected but got upright again utilizing her near manus successful the snow, past hooked a gross with her close limb later.

The Italian was seen cooling her close manus with crystal successful the decorativeness area.

Gut-Behrami inactive led Brignone astatine the last divided but the Swiss standout mislaid 0.17 connected the Italian successful the decorativeness section.

Two super-Gs remaining

There are 2 super-Gs remaining this season: One connected Friday, followed by the season-ending contention astatine the finals successful Sun Valley, Idaho, connected March 23. A contention triumph is worthy 100 points.

Gut-Behrami has won 5 vocation World Cup super-G play titles, including 3 of the past 4 successful a bid interrupted lone by Brignone successful 2022.

Brignone, who is adjacent to wrapping up her 2nd vocation wide World Cup title, has finished successful the apical 5 successful the past 16 World Cup races she completed, though she had 2 DNFs successful elephantine slaloms successful that period.

Lindsey Vonn fell aboriginal successful her tally but appeared unhurt. The American mislaid equilibrium connected her wrong skis successful a near turn, slid done a gross and mislaid her near ski, but stood up aft a fewer seconds and aboriginal skied down the hill.

Vonn returned to World Cup racing this play astatine 40 with a titanium genu aft six years distant from the circuit.

Aicher's triumph came little than 2 weeks aft the all-event skier triumphed successful a downhill successful Norway.

Aicher had lone 1 erstwhile top-10 decorativeness successful a super-G this season, and her triumph connected Thursday was the archetypal for a German skier successful a super-G successful six years.

Downhill cancelled

A downhill contention initially scheduled for Thursday was canceled aft the mandatory grooming runs could not beryllium held arsenic the precocious portion of the 3 Franco Berthod people was unusable pursuing days of dense snowfall.

The super-G utilized a reserve commencement constituent little down the mountain, reducing tally times to astir 58 seconds for the fastest racers.

The contention was interrupted for fractional an hr aft Brignone's tally arsenic a people idiosyncratic needed aesculapian attraction and was lifted disconnected the elevation by helicopter.

Cornelia Huetter had a nasty tumble erstwhile her near skis seemed to drawback a bump, causing the Austrian to twist around, suffer equilibrium and descent into the information netting. Huetter, who is the defending World Cup downhill champion, got up rapidly and seemed to person avoided injury.