Marta Bassino beat Mikaela Shiffrin to win the women’s super-G on Wednesday and give Italy its second gold medal at the Alpine skiing world championships, with her American rival settling for silver.
Shiffrin led Bassino by three-tenths of a second at the second split but couldn’t match the Italian’s pace in the last part of the Roc de Fer course and finished second, 0.11 seconds behind.
Cornelia Huetter of Austria and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie of Norway both were 0.33 behind to share the bronze medal.
“I’m so happy with my run, and emotional, because I don’t really feel like I should be winning a medal in super-G right now. There are so many women so strong and so fast,” said Shiffrin. “There was one moment where I thought I lost everything but then I could keep it rolling until the finish.”
The silver is Shiffrin’s 12th medal in 15 career world championship races and came two days after the American was heading for a possible medal in the combined event before straddling the third-to-last gate in the slalom portion. Federica Brignone won that race.
“I felt like I learned from the combined that I have to be much more aggressive with my skiing and with my tactics,” said Shiffrin, who was sixth in Monday’s super-G run. “Also, this hill is difficult and it deserves respect for the terrain. You have to push the limit, but if you go over the limit, it’s even worse. So I was trying to be really strong, really aggressive and just also a little bit smart.”
Shiffrin has 11 wins on the World Cup circuit this season to take her overall tally to 85, breaking Lindsey Vonn’s women’s record of 82 and moving within one of the overall mark set by Ingemar Stenmark in the 1970s and ’80s.
She said she expected Bassino to do well after seeing her shortly before the race.