Federica Brignone takes surprise victory in Are after poor first run - 'I didn't think it was possible'

BySportsbeat

Published 09/03/2024 at 15:02 GMT

The Italian closed the gap on World Cup leader Lara Gut-Behrami after recovering quite brilliantly from a poor first run to take giant slalom victory in Are, Sweden. Brignone admitted that she thought a victory was beyond her after a poor first run, but after a stunning time of 58.92 seconds she came first. Stream the 2023-24 winter sports season on discovery+

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Federica Brignone closed the gap on World Cup leader Lara Gut-Behrami with giant slalom victory in Are.

Brignone clocked a time of 2:11.02 to finish 0.33 seconds ahead of home favourite Sara Hector, with Gut-Behrami taking third.

Gut-Behrami sits top of both the overall and the giant slalom standings but has seen her lead in both trimmed by Brignone, but the Swiss athlete remains the favourite to take home both crystal globes.

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Brignone was well off the pace after the first run, with her time of 1:12.10 over a second behind Hector, but the Italian skier roared back with a stunning second run of 58.92 seconds - the fastest in the field - to clinch top spot.

Second place for Hector moves her above Mikaela Shiffrin and into third in the giant slalom standings.

"I'm so grateful and proud of what I did," said Brignone in quotes published by fis-ski.com. "It's something really amazing and something special.

"The first run, I was not really happy with my run - I started really bad and I had no confidence. And in the second run I said to myself, 'OK, you have to try everything because you're (far) back.'

"I didn't think it was possible today to win the race. I just tried my best to be on the podium again, it was the objective of today."

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