Chasing Crystal

At the start of this season, few could have expected the downhill World Cup battle to be fought between Laura Pirovano and Emma Aicher. The season got off to a superb start for Lindsey Vonn: she made several podium appearances in the speed events and had collected 400 downhill points before her dramatic crash in Crans-Montana. But then her crash at the Olympics caused a serious injury and ruled out the possibility of her winning the downhill World Cup.

Before the Val di Fassa event, Italy's Laura Pirovano had never won a race, but she claimed two victories at her home resort, which moved her into first place in the downhill standings.

Before the decisive race, the Italian leads by 28 points, ahead of Emma Aicher.

Downhill standings
1. Laura Pirovano (Italy) - 436
2. Emma Aicher (Germany) - 408
3. Lindsey Vonn (USA) - 400
4. Kira Weidle-Winkelmann (Germany) - 351
5. Cornelia Hütter (Austria) - 344 For Germany's Emma Aicher, today's race is important not only in the fight for the first Small Crystal Globe of her career. Today, she can reduce the gap to Mikaela Shiffrin, who leads the overall standings. Mikaela is not competing in the downhill, but will race in the three remaining events, including the super-G. If Emma wins today, her deficit to Mikaela will be reduced to 40 points. And given that the German performs quite well in all disciplines, the battle for the overall World Cup will continue until the final race of the season.

Photo: footage from the SRF Sport television channel; HEAD press service 14:00 21.03.26

Source