Sofia Goggia already knows everything for Sunday: "The crucial point is that"

The second and final round of the Olympic downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo belongs to Breezy Johnson: the American set the fastest time on the eve of the medal challenge, scheduled for Sunday starting at 11:30 a.m.
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The American stopped the stopwatch at 1’37″91 while maintaining a lead of 21 hundredths of a second over Germany’s Kira Weidle Winklemm and 0″37 over the rejuvenated Lindsey Vonn. Austria’s Ariane Rädler (+0″43) and Germany’s Emma Aicher (+0″84) were ahead of Sofia Goggia and Federica Brignone, who were sixth at 0″86 and seventh at 0″93, respectively, manifesting an excellent feeling for the Tofane Olympia.

Aldo Seghedoni

Just behind, ninth was Laura Pirovano (+1″00), with Elena Curtoni at the finish line with a gap of 1″73 followed by Nicol Delago (+1″76). After 23 runs, the race jury decided to stop the race due to deteriorating weather conditions; the remaining athletes took on the course starting at the Big Bend without timing.

“Receiving the Olympic flashlight from Gustav Thöni and lighting the brazier simultaneously with Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni was a moment that will remain in my heart, a very emotional moment for me – said Goggia -. I couldn’t see well in the first cross-country and I missed it, from the Tofane onwards I skied well; that will be my crux on Sunday. The bottom is getting harder and more compact”.

The first race with medals up for grabs in Milan Cortina 2026 immediately made Italian fans rejoice: in the men’s Olympic downhill, in fact, the Azzurri team celebrated Giovanni Franzoni’s silver and Dominik Paris’s bronze, in the race won by Franjo von Allmen, who thus gave the first gold of the 25th edition of the Winter Games to Switzerland. The two Azzurri overtook the Swiss phenomenon Marco Odermatt, who surprisingly finished at the foot of the podium and was distanced by twenty hundredths net just from Paris.

As for the other placings, the first of the disappointments is certainly Odermatt, dominant in the World Cup but unable to make the podium in the Olympic downhill. Behind him is another Helvetic, Alexis Monney, who precedes instead two Austrians, Vincent Kriechmayr and Daniel Hemetsberger. Closing out the Top 10 in the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic downhill are France’s Nils Allegre, Canada’s James Crawford and the U.S.’s Kyle Negomir, who denies Azzurro’s Mattia Casse a Top 10 spot by only eight hundredths.