Alpine Skiingwomen's world cup
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After 14 out of 37 races, two athletes have made a void in the fight for the overall World Cup (even if Vlhova, Gut-Behrami and Brignone cannot be completely ruled out yet): the American can arrive in mid-January with over 500 points of margin, then the blue will have 4 weekends of speed (with the Olympics in the middle) to try to get closer, but it is the giant who can keep hope alive, starting with Lienz and Maribor.
Thursday 23 December 2021 6 minutes reading time
Mikaela Shiffrin vs Sofia Goggia? Yes, the numbers (and more) say that the fight for the crystal ball could boil down to a duel between the one who has already won the most important trophy three times, but who has had to give up in the last two seasons, and the rider from Bergamo who rose on the podium of the general classification in 2016/17, third to almost 450 points from Mikaela in her first World Cup, then finishing fourth in the following year before stopping again due to injuries, including last season in which Sofia was not too far from Vlhova and Gut-Behrami, until the Garmisch crash.
Removed the parallel of Lech / Zuers, in fact irrelevant given the absences, so far 7 fast races (3 descents and 4 super-g) and 6 techniques (3 giants and 3 slalom) have been played out of the 18 planned in this calendar. year, or 9 for each discipline. Shiffrin leads with 115 points over Goggia, 315 over Vlhova, 408 over Brignone while Lara Gut-Behrami, stopped by Covid in the last 4 races, pays 452 to the 26-year-old from Colorado.
After the giants of Courchevel, six other technical tests in series are planned, from the double in Lienz (giant and slalom on December 28-29), to the slalom in Zagreb on January 4, 2022, passing through Maribor with giant and slalom on 8 -9 January, until the night of Flachau between the narrow poles (11 January).
Here, evaluating the average points held by Shiffrin so far and the possibilities of Goggia in the two giants, it is likely that the American flees to over 500 lengths of advantage before speed returns to the protagonist in mid-January with a descent and super-g in Altenmarkt. -Zauchensee. Including those two races in Austria, at that point there will be 17 missing, with 6 descents, 5 super-gs, 4 giants and 2 slaloms.
In Zauchensee there will be Petra Vlhova, not Mikaela Shiffrin who, barring surprises, will show up at the starting gate in "her" Cortina, almost certainly also downhill in addition to the super-g on Sunday 23 January which will close the two days on Olympia delle Tofane (where he has already won in the discipline). Forty-eight hours later here is the giant of Kronplatz, finally before the weekend Olympics with downhill and super-g in Garmisch, clearly in favor of Goggia with Shiffrin in the pits.
After Beijing 2022, the last 10 cup races with double descent in Crans-Montana (26-27 February), and in that case it is impossible to understand if Shiffrin will be there or not, while certainly the leader of the general will face Lenzerheide (5-6 March) where we will see super-g and giant, before the technical competitions of Are (where we will return to slalom two months from Flachau ...) and the finals of Courchevel Méribel.
It is clear, the favorite is Shiffrin and with a discrete margin, in fact to be built in the comparison between Mikaela's results in super-g (but something could also come from the descent, in particular in Cortina and the finals) and Sofia in giant, or in the "third discipline". In the two reference points of these extraordinary champions, the average points held so far is amazing: the American has put together 260 points out of the 300 available in slalom and 280 out of 300 in giant, never falling off the podium for a 90 pt a competition.
The Bergamo rider is at 88.5, considering the 620 points collected out of the 700 available in the 7 speed challenges seen in Lake Louise, Sankt Moritz and Val d''Isère (5 wins, a second place and a sixth). Of course, Goggia in the remaining 6 giants can potentially do much more than the only 15 pt collected in the first three specialty outings, at the same time Shiffrin has already written 205 in the points box in just 4 super-gs, or more than 51 per race .
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