Nicole Schmidhofer, the Austrian skier who had not won any World Cup events until a few days ago, is on a winning streak. Schmidhofer clinched her second consecutive downhill victory on Saturday, finishing the race in 1 minute and 47.68 seconds, beating her teammate Cornelia Huetter by 0.44 seconds.
Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin secured the third spot, trailing behind by only 0.47 seconds, while two-time World Cup champion Mikaela Shiffrin ended up in fourth place. Schmidhofer, who is 29 years old, expressed her disbelief at her success and excitement for her strong start to the season.
Schmidhofer improved her time by around half a second compared to the previous race but mentioned that despite feeling faster, the course didn’t seem that way. She described the previous day’s race as rough and dark, contrasting it with the relatively easy win she experienced. Shiffrin moved up to fourth place after finishing ninth on Friday.
In the previous season, Shiffrin won a downhill World Cup event at the same venue and is now working on her downhill performance. Reflecting on her past victory, Shiffrin acknowledged that winning doesn’t come easy every time but she is content with knowing the feeling of a major win. Lindsey Vonn opted out of the speed races to recover from a training crash.
