[ad_1]
Issued on:
Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy) (AFP)
Mikaela Shiffrin and Dominik Paris will defend their world super-G titles at Cortina d’Ampezzo on Tuesday with the American star of girls’s snowboarding in search of to make up for the frustration of lacking out on her first occasion.
Shiffrin is in search of so as to add to her seven world medals after Monday’s mixed was cancelled due to heavy snow.
Paris is making a comeback from a season-ending harm and will show the right tonic for dwelling followers, watching from their sofas amid strict Covid-19 protocols which have compelled spectators to be banned.
Double shock for Shiffrin?
Shiffrin described her super-G victory on the Are worlds two years in the past as a “shock”, regardless of her undoubted all-round capacity — she stays the only real skier, male or feminine, to have gained races within the six disciplines presently held on the World Cup circuit.
What would possibly come as extra of a shock this time round is the very fact the 25-year-old has chosen to defend her title, regardless of having solely raced 10 instances within the final 12 months, a 12 months marked by the sudden demise of her father Jeff final February.
“I’m actually going into this velocity part of the worlds champs with the intention of just about attempting to take it as a possibility for coaching,” mentioned Shiffrin, who may even compete within the alpine mixed, large slalom and slalom.
“I nonetheless do consider that with simply the previous couple of days of coaching we have now been in a position to get, and my consolation ranges on the skis, I feel it might nonetheless be a extremely nice end result, it’s simply I’m not entering into to defend my title, if that is smart. I wished to be clear about that up entrance.”
Italy’s Federica Brignone, a large slalom bronze medallist on the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018, mentioned: “She’s a brand new Shiffrin and the outcomes are nice. She’s at all times prime 5, prime six and contemplating what she’s executed within the final season, I can inform you she’s going to be actually harmful for the world championships. She’s not lifeless and he or she’s actually robust.”
All Italian eyes on Paris in Goggia’s absence
Cortina organisers had been undoubtedly robbed of one in every of their star points of interest when Sofia Goggia sustained a season-ending knee harm. The charismatic Olympic downhill champion, who gained world super-G silver behind Shiffrin in Are in 2019, might be a sore loss for her dwelling world champs.
She’s going to move the buck of Italian expectations to teammates Brignone and Marta Bassino.
Whereas Goggia is absent, native hopes within the males’s super-G relaxation on the shoulders of veteran Christof Innerhofer and in-form Dominik Paris.
Innerhofer was world super-G champion again in 2011 and may nonetheless threaten for a podium, whereas Paris gained the downhill final weekend in Garmisch-Partenkirchen only a 12 months after blowing his knee in coaching in Kitzbuehel.
“It was an ideal weekend with the victory in DH and a great run within the super-G,” mentioned Paris, the defending males’s world super-G champion.
“Subsequent cease @cortina2021, time for one thing critical!”
Code-hopping Ledecka
Czech skier Ester Ledecka made historical past in Pyeongchang in 2018, storming to Olympic super-G gold in what was one of many greatest upsets in Video games historical past, albeit by a hundredth of a second forward of now-retired Austrian Anna Veith.
Ledecka is exclusive in that she flips between alpine snowboarding and snowboarding. In South Korea, she went on to win a second Olympic gold in parallel large slalom on her snowboard — the primary time an athlete has gained medals on skis and a snowboard.
Having nailed two sixth-placed finishes in Garmisch on the again of a World Cup super-G victory in Val d’Isere in December, Ledecka stays a racer wholly able to once more upsetting the apple cart.
© 2021 AFP
[ad_2]
Source link
