Bassino n° 2, Brignone 6, Curtoni 10, Goggia 14: how much blue in the first super-g of St. Anton

A battle super-g, given that in any case the conditions will not be ideal, and usually in such a context the blue national team exalts itself.

This is what St. Anton proposes, for the first of the two consecutive specialty races (Sunday the encore) which represent the third and fourth seasonal event, in a revised program for the Austrian stage after the forced cancellation of the downhill, not having been able to compete no proof.

As is well known, one of the two super-g scheduled for Cortina here in the Arlberg was substantially brought forward, then bringing the skipped descent for tomorrow right up the Olympia delle Tofane (confirmation to this effect arrived at the captains’ meeting, the official in the next few hours based on the regular dispute of the races in St. Anton) next week, but it is clear that in this situation in terms of weather and track the unknowns remain.

The main problem concerns the consistency of the snowpack in the upper part of the “Karl Schranz”, beyond further rainfall which, in particular, should hit the Arlberg locality in the night between Saturday and Sunday.

Tomorrow the start is scheduled at 11.00 (live TV on Eurosport 1 and Rai Sport), with a decidedly friendly layout and with a certain tradition for Italy, given that Giovanni Feltrin will take care of it. A super-g that will not see the first three in the general classification of the World Cup, Mikaela Shiffrin, Petra Vlhova and Wendy Holdener at the start (and it will be the same on Sunday), but it is clear that it is above all the absence of the American, in fact already decided even before the last technical competitions of a very intense period, to be able to weigh considering that we are talking about the last winner in this specialty, last December 18th in Sankt Moritz.

Cornelia Huetter will open, then here is Marta Bassino with a bib number 2 which may not be the best in terms of references, but at the same time, if the track gets particularly marked (or the weather conditions change), the Cuneo-born will still be able to try to obtain a great result, as she did two years ago, in the last previous one in St. Anton, when she finished second behind Gut-Behrami.

Flury, Schmidhofer and Siebenhofer will precede the second of the nine blues at the gate: Federica Brignone, bib 6, is back in great shape and wants the best result also to immediately return to the fight for the crystal ball she conquered last season. Puchner and Gisin may not be a factor for the podium area, but watch out for Tippler with the 9 before Elena Curtoni’s red bib.

The Valtellinese will go tenth in defense of her leadership, then many dangers again with Mowinckel, Corinne Suter, Gut-Behrami with 13 and Sofia Goggia who caught on 14, followed by the French Miradoli and Worley. Haehlen with the 18 and Ortlieb with the 23 (but let’s not forget Grenier, n° 32, because he really knows how to do it even in super-g) will be other loose cannons, then the last five Italians at the start.

Nicol Delago will have the n° 24, Karoline Pichler enters the thirty with the series of absences (including Raedler, injured in recent days in training) and finds the 25, Laura Pirovano (bib 28), Roberta Melesi with the 33 and Nadia Delago , to find some confidence before Cortina, starting with the 35.

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WOMEN’S SUPER-G – ST. ANTON

Startlist: 1 Huetter, 2 bassino3 Flury, 4 Schmidhofer, 5 Siebenhofer, 6 Brignone7 Puchner, 8 Gisin, 9 Tippler, 10 Curtons11 Mowinckel, 12 C. Suter, 13 Gut-Behrami, 14 Goggia15 Miradoli, 16 Worley, 17 Lie, 18 Haehlen, 19 Gauche, 20 Robinson, 24 Nicol Delago, 25 Pichler, 28 Pirovano, 33 Melesi, 35 Nadia Delago.