Federica Brignone leaves everyone stunned and comes close to Top 5 on World Cup comeback

If it is not a sports miracle, it is very close: Federica Brignone took an incredible fifth place in the Plan de Corones giant slalom, a result unthinkable even just a few weeks ago, when the champion from Valle d’Aosta was in the midst of her rehabilitation from the very serious injury suffered at the tail end of the 2024-2025 season. Brignone, seventh in the first run, also managed to move up an’additional position in the second run, thus grabbing a sixth place with significance that goes far beyond the numbers.

From a chronometric point of view, Federica Brignone’s was a solid and clean run, testifying to a very high level of concentration. The seventh place in the first run was improved in the second thanks to a partial time just 44 hundredths slower than that of the winner Julia Scheib, for a total gap, adding it to that of the first run, of 1″23. Only five, then, were the athletes who did better than the Valdostan: Scheib, Camille Rast, Sara Hector, Mikaela Shiffrin and Maryna Gasienica-Daniel.