Brignone closes in the general title of the World Cup with a victory of Super G near his hometown

Federica Brignone almost locked the general title of the Women’s World Cup by winning a super-g on Friday in the Thuile, Italy, giving the Italian an almost insurgable advantage in the classification of the season.

Brignone extended her advantage over her only remaining challenger, the defending champion Lara Gut-Behrami, 382 points with four remaining races in the World Cup finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.

A race in the race is worth 100 points, but Gut-Behrami generally does not compete in Slalom. Jumping that event in the final would leave the prominent Swiss with only three races, not enough to close the gap.

“It’s crazy, and doing it here, at home, is even crazier,” Brignone said after winning the race near his Italian hometown in the Aosta Valley. “This year was one of my greatest dreams, winning here at Thuile, and I couldn’t finish my career without her. So, I’m really proud.”

Brignone previously won the Big Crystal Globe in 2020, when he surpassed the five -time Mikaela Shiffrin champion at the top of the classification in the last weeks of the season when the American took a break from the races after the death of his father.

“I wanted to rebuild it and try again. It was one of my dreams when I was a child,” Brignone said.

The smallest possible margin

On Friday, Brignone beat his teammate Sofia Goggia for victory in the penultimate super-g of the season.

“I wanted to see the green light in front of my people here,” Brignone said. “It’s crazy, it’s really very, very big.”

Brignone won by the smallest possible margin after Goggia led during his career, but lost a tenth of the second in the final section to finish 0.01 behind.

Romane Miradoli stayed 0.05 thirdly for the first French skier podium in more than a year.

Gut-Beami shared fourth place with his Swiss teammate Corinne Suter, both following Brignone for 0.35 seconds.

Val Grenier de Canada was 0.66 behind Brignone to end in eighth.

The result established a tense battle for the title of the Super G season, with Brignone now five points ahead of Gut-Berami, with only the March 23 race in the remaining finals.

Emma Aicher, who won the super-g on Thursday, seemed to repeat that triumph, but the German prodigy left the course in the middle of his career when he led Brignone for almost three tenths of a second.

‘A really up -up season’

Lindsey Vonn was the best American finalist in 13th, one day after he fell and slid through an early door in Thursday’s race, but remained unharmed.

Vonn, who has classified for the descent and the super-g in the finals, called his return at 40 years after six years of the circuit “A really up-to-aware season” in which he recorded two results among the 10 best of 12 openings.

“With Super-G, I feel that it is my best discipline, I am skiing the best, but I am really inconsistent,” said the four times general champion. “I have been changing my material almost all races, every race, sometimes it is better, sometimes it is not. I just need to find balance.”

Vonn said in the AP interview in January that he planned to run one more season and compete at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympic Games before retiring again.

“I just need training and time, next year is my main objective,” he said. “I think I did exactly what I needed to do this year, get a good start number and give me a good opportunity for next year to work well.”

His teammate Lauren Macuga, the bronze medalist of the world championship last month, was 19th.