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Mikaela Shiffrin introduced on New 12 months’s Day that she’ll be sitting out speed events this season, which implies followers of the US Ski Group may flip their consideration to Breezy Johnson as one to look at within the run-up to the 2022 Beijing Video games.
The 24-year-old Jackson Gap native shall be in motion this weekend as the ladies’s alpine World Cup continues with a downhill at Austria’s St. Anton am Arlberg on Saturday.
Out of Shiffrin’s Shadow, Johnson Aiming for Prime of Podium
Johnson, a downhill specialist, has already notched a pair of third-place downhill finishes this season — the one two profession podiums of her profession so far. This mountain, nevertheless, has a particular type of magic for US skiers not named Shiffrin or Vonn.
The one girl to win a World Cup occasion moreover the 2 superstars above is Colorado native Alice McKennis, who received the downhill in St. Anton am Arlberg in 2013.
Will Breezy escape of her third-place doldrums and discover luck on the speedy and compact Austrian course? At +1000 (Bwin), she may not be a nasty guess.
Suter-Goggia Rivalry Heats Up the Downhill
These in search of out a favourite on Saturday ought to look no additional than Swiss downhill specialist Corinne Suter (+300) to dominate on the hill that many contemplate the cradle of alpine snowboarding.
Suter received the downhill and super-G crystal globes final season, and at present shares the lead within the downhill World Cup standings with Italian Sofia Goggia (+300); they’re knotted at 180 factors. She received the opening downhill occasion within the World Cup occasion of the season in Val d’Isère final Dec. 18. Suter was then runner-up behind Goggia within the second race on the similar ski resort.
The 26-year-old additionally completed within the prime two in every of the final 4 World Cup downhill occasions, and has reached the rostrum each time since a fifth-place end in Garmisch-Partenkirschen on Feb. 8, 2020. Suter has amassed eight podium finishes for the reason that begin of 2019 in World Cup girls’s downhill occasions, double the quantity of another skier within the downhill at present on the circuit.
Goggia, within the meantime, might win back-to-back World Cup downhill races for the second time in her profession. She posted successive wins in January 2018, one at Dangerous Kleinkirchheim and the opposite at Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Amongst Italian girls, solely Deborah Compagnoni (16), Isolde Kostner, and Federica Brignone (15 every) have extra profession World Cup victories than Goggia with eight. Nonetheless, Goggia’s profession 29 podiums are tops amongst her countrywomen.
Seven Races, Seven Winners Leaves Downhill Broad Open this Season
Brignone (+1200), the 30-year-old veteran who completed third in final season’s downhill standings has been snowboarding quick this season. On Saturday, Brignone can grow to be the second Italian skier with a downhill win to say a World Cup occasion in 4 totally different disciplines. Presently, Gustav Thöni is the one Italian to perform that feat.
There’s an incredible quantity of parity among the many girls this season, as proven by the truth that the final seven girls’s World Cup occasions have been received by seven athletes, together with Petra Vlhová, Michelle Gisin, Ester Ledecká, Sofia Goggia, Corinne Suter, Mikaela Shiffrin, and Marta Bassino.
Who would be the subsequent girl to step to the highest of the rostrum this weekend?
St. Anton am Arlberg Ladies’s Downhill Probables/Odds (Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021)
Odds | |
S. Goggia | +300 |
C. Suter | +300 |
L. Intestine-Behrami | +400 |
B. Johnson | +1000 |
F. Brignone | +1200 |
N. Ortlieb | +1200 |
T. Tippler | +1400 |
Ok. V. Lie | +1600 |
I. Stuhec | +2200 |
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