Italy Again As Bassino Shocks By Grabbing Super-G Gold Ahead Of Shiffrin

Marta Bassino of Italy took the win on the Roc de Fer course, tallying two gold medals for the Italians so far in Meribel. Cornelia Huetter of Austria and Kajsa Bickhoff Lie of Norway tied for bronze.

Giant slalom specialist Marta Bassino won  her first ever major super-G race. Marta Bassino produced the super-G run of her life to snatch a second World Championship gold in two days for Italy. A giant slalom specialist who has never won a super-G World Cup race, Bassino produced a tactical masterclass on the Roc de Fer track to finish 0.11 seconds ahead of six-time world champion Mikaela Shiffrin.

Norway’s Kajsa Vickhoff Lie, never better than 15th in super-G on the World Cup cicruit this season, added to the sense of surprise by tying with Swiss veteran Cornelia Huetter for bronze.

With skier after skier – including pre-race favourites Lara Gut-Behrami and Ragnhild Mowinckel – excelling on the high-speed top section before coming undone as the course wound into the icy shade and the snow conditions changed, it was Bassino who nailed it.

The 26-year-old, who won the GS World Cup Crystal Globe in 2021, held back up top before mastering the tough, technical lower half – a challenge that clearly suited her.

“I’m so excited because it was really hard to watch all the girls after me because I lost a lot of time the first part but then I think I did really great in the last part,” the new champion, who won parallel slalom gold two years ago, said in the finish area. It’s still a little bit unbelievable.”

It is a feeling the thousands of fans in the finish area shared. For the second time in these Courchevel Meribel World Championships Shiffrin had the clock on her side with just a handful of gates to go, until everything changed. 

For the 2019 super-G world champion it was a silver won, however, and not a gold lost. 

Shiffrin’s silver tied the record set by Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway, who won 12 individual medals in 27 World Championships starts. Shiffrin has only started 15 World Champs races, which brings her to a medal rate of 88%. Anja Paerson of Sweden holds the overall record of 13 medals, having won two in the team event.

Shiffrin also has six World Champs gold medals, one shy of the modern record. She has also won a World Champs medal in super-G in every color, and her finish today tied her with Austrian great Hermann Maier as the only skiers to make a super-G podium at three World Champs in a row.

Shiffrin, who has 85 slalom World Cup wins, is the winningest woman skier of all time and is one race away from tying Swede Ingemar Stenmark to become the winningest skier in history. She will look for that record after the World Champs in March.

“That was the best run I could do on this track and I had one turn where coming on to the pitch I lost it all. This is a difficult track,” Shiffrin said before delighting in the fact she had put her Beijing 2022 Olympic Games experience, and the opening Alpine combined, behind her.

“Of course I had some tough races, everyone talked about the Olympics, I think I answered 200 questions the last four weeks about ‘are you afraid the World Championships are going to be more like the Olympics and you won’t get a medal’ and ‘are you afraid of this?'. This Combined the other day I was like ‘oh no’ and then again everybody is like ‘So, is this the Olympics, is this the same thing, is it a curse?' And I was like no! It just happens.

“It feels really, really nice to have a very strong performance on this hill in the super-G and I am looking forward to the GS and the slalom.”

For the 30-year-old Huetter who was fourth in the super-G back at the 2015 World Championships before being struck down by a series of injuries, it was pure redemption to hit the podium.

“The last years I was not able to ski and race because I was at home with a bad knee. I had tears in my eyes for a few moments today at the finish,” the Austrian skier said.

She, like Vickhoff Lie, had an early bib number, and both managed the icy turn, which caught out so many later skiers, superbly.

“It’s insane. I am so happy and I am so proud,” the 24-year-old Norwegian said. “I am just happy to be here and be fast and living the dream.”