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The Aosta Valley one step away from Compagnoni and Kostner in terms of success, but there is much more in a growth that can lead it to become the largest blue ever, between crystal balls, Cortina 2021 World Cup and the Beijing Games 2022.
Monday 3 February 2020 7 minutes reading time
The extraordinary season that the women's Alpine skiing national team is experiencing, sanctioned by exceptional numbers such as the 20 overall podiums (never so good at this point of the season and only 5 lengths from the absolute record), the 7 victories and the top of the ranking by nations , in addition to placing at least two athletes on the podium five times, an event that has never happened before as four of the top twelve of the World Cup general, sees Federica Brignone as the reference of an exceptional team.
Of course, Sofia Goggia will still have time to bring home some success and still fight at least for the super-g crystal ball, just as the definitive explosion of Marta Bassino does very well thinking about the future (and then there are Nicol Delago, Elena Curtoni, Francesca Marsaglia, all on the podium in the season), but the 29 year old from Valle d'Aosta has reached a competitive maturity that, perhaps, nobody would have expected at these levels.
She is the anti-Shiffrin, although for this year it would take a colossal undertaking to get the American out of the throne: there are 270 points of detachment of Faith, with 18 races still on the calendar since, if all it will go in the right direction, the canceled descent to Rosa Khutor will be recovered. We are talking about 4 descents, 3 super-g, 4 giants, as many slaloms, 2 combined and the parallel slalom of Are. On paper, it would be necessary to recover in Shiffrin such a thing as 600 points among all the races excluding the slalom (where the American can safely bring home over 340-350 points).
Mission almost impossible and rightly Federica herself does not mention it, focusing on the struggle for specialty crystal balls: yes, because if she has always dreamed of winning the giant one, now the 29 year old from La Salle has even three possibilities (she would also be third in that of parallel and sixth downhill ...) for as many red bibs that he currently wears. In super-g it's a total battle, with three races at the end, in giant the margin on Shiffrin is fair (61 points) but there are still four challenges to face, while in the two combined things can happen, with Holdener and Bassino that the follow in the standings after the only one played and won by Fede in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee.
What is certain, Brignone has already beaten his personal points record (955 against 895), but he can think very well of the primacy for the female Italsci of Goggia (1197 in 2016/17) and also to the absolute one of Alberto Tomba , which reached 1362 in the 1991/92 vintage (and that was not enough for the triumph of Albertone, beaten by Accola).
It is clear that one of the most fascinating figures is that of the World Cup victories: with the pearl of Rosa Khutor we are 14, -1 from Isolde Kostner and -2 from Deborah Compagnoni, while in terms of podiums the third place at an altitude of 36 it is still a bit far from Valtellina, second with 44, and from the Val Gardena who collected 51. Compagnoni and Putzer who can be reached, for Federica, in terms of races won in one single season, or 5 (Brignone is currently at 4, clearly his record).
What is missing from an already exceptional career? A cup to take home and a title in a big event. The 2021 Cortina World Cup is already there, just 12 months later, the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games another leap further. Followed by a team of the highest level coordinated by Gianluca Rulfi, by a family that launched her into the world of skiing with the right times and ways (and it could not be otherwise, with a champion like Ninna Quario), and a brother like Davide which follows her like a shadow and has contributed, all right, to ensure that Faith blossomed definitively to write the history of blue skiing.
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