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CRANS MONTANA, Switzerland — Italian skier Marta Bassino used all her technical skills to conquer the Women’s World Cup downhill on Saturday, taking her first win in the sport’s fastest event.
Bassino, a giant slalom specialist who won the super-G world title last year, gained more time than most competitors on the winding opening and final sections of the Mont Lachot course, finishing 0.54 seconds behind teammate Federica Brignone. I put it on and scored.
Lara Gut-Behrami finished 1.11 behind in third place, extending the Swiss star’s lead in the overall standings to 165 points over the absent Mikaela Shiffrin.
Shiffrin is currently nursing a left knee injury and is unlikely to return to the track earlier than the second weekend in March for the GS and slalom in Sweden.
Bosnian skier Elvedina Muzafelija, wearing number 28, had a slow start, but finished in fourth place, 1.22 seconds behind Bassino, earning her first career top-10 finish.
“I’m really, really happy. It’s my first downhill win, so it’s great,” Bassino said. “I think I had a great run. I did everything I saw and analyzed on video.”
Bassino has finished on the podium just once in 37 World Cup downhill starts, finishing runner-up in a race in Bulgaria four years ago.
She had already done well in Friday’s shortened downhill on the same course, starting 21st and running clean to finish fifth.
Racing in spring-like temperatures on Saturday, Bassino got off to the fastest start and set the best times at the first two checkpoints. She could not quite match the downhill specialists while skiing the straighter middle sections, but once again showed unparalleled pace in the lower part of the course.
“I think I was able to make the right turns in the right way, and I tried to go fast and be confident in the snow,” Bassino said, adding that starting early with number 3 was an advantage.
“I think it helped a little bit because the snow slowed down a little bit,” she said.
Bassino became the sixth winner in six downhill races this season. There are also two final races of the season scheduled over two weeks in Norway and Austria.
A day after winning Friday’s race, Gut-Behrami added another 60 points to his season record, putting him 19 points ahead of downhill leader Sofia Goggia.
Goggia had won the downhill title for the past three years, but the Italian had to end his season prematurely after breaking two bones in his right foot in a fall during training 12 days ago.
Gut-Behrami also tops the super-G and giant slalom rankings, which is strikingly similar to the men’s World Cup, where Swiss standout Marco Odermatt leads four different positions.
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