Sofia Goggia, Saturday starts quietly
Eighteenth position, almost a second and a half behind the first in the ranking: this is how Sofia Goggia’s Saturday started in Semmering, on the Panorama slope ch hosts the giant slalom race valid for the 2025-2026 World Cup. In the first run, the Italian champion ran a shrewd race, without taking any particular risks: the result was qualification for the second leg, although with the lead, occupied by Sweden’s Sara Hector, rather distant.
Hector was just two hundredths ahead of Austria’s Julia Scheib, who promises battle ahead of the second fraction. Third was Lara Colturi, a full-fledged Italian but entered in the CdM representing Albania: 13 hundredths behind the daughter of art from the leader of the first fraction. As far as the Italian national team is concerned, Lara Della Mea is the best in the ranking, with a time of 58.59 that allowed her to close the opening heat in ninth position.
Goggia, on the other hand, is 11th with a time of 58.62: however, the Bergamasque skier shined in the last sector, where she achieved the fourth best time, nipping a few hundredths off her rivals. Two more Azzurre qualified for the second run: they are Alice Pazzaglia, 26th at 2″94 from Hector, and Giorgia Collomb, 27th with a gap of 3″03. Already over, however, the day of Anna Trocker, Ambra Pomare, Asja Zenere, Ilaria Ghisalberti and Laura Steinmair, who are out of the top 30.
Of note, among the big names, the fall of New Zealand’s Alice Robinson, the leader of the specialty ranking, in the third sector and that of the U.S.’s Nina O’Brien, who came down with number 11, in the final part of the course. The second run is scheduled at 1 p.m. For Julia Scheib, the opportunity is there for her to move ahead of everyone in the specialty ranking.
For Sofia Goggia, on the other hand, today’s is an important test in a discipline in which she is regaining pace and confidence race after race. The Bergamo native is aiming to excel not only in the speed races, but also in a discipline like the giant slalom that conuiga speed to technique, also in view of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.
