Goggia caps comeback with super-G win at Birds of Prey World Cup

BEAVER CREEK — After watching her coaches’ inspection film on Saturday afternoon, Sofia Goggia felt pretty good going into the final race of the Birds of Prey World Cup.

“Yesterday, I felt it could be mine,” the 32-year-old Italian said. “But between thinking and doing things, there is the ocean.”

Fortunately, Lindsey Vonn was there to help the four-time downhill globe winner navigate Sunday’s super-G seas.

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“She gave me some tips,” Goggia said of her 40-year-old friend’s course report, given right after the U.S. Ski Team superstar served as forerunner for the fifth-straight day. “She was right.”

Goggia capped off her comeback from a February injury, sailing down the Birds of Prey course in 1 minute, 3.90 seconds to claim a 0.48-second victory over Lara Gut-Behrami as Ariane Raedler booted her Austrian teammate, Cornelia Hütter — Saturday’s downhill champion — off the podium from bib 20.

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“I’m really grateful to be here,” said Goggia, who fractured her right tibia and tibial malleolus in a GS training crash in February. “But I’m saying this not because yesterday I came second or today I win. I’m so grateful to put out my poles at the start gate and have the possibility and the chance.”

She was efficient at the start before ripping the race open in the second sector.

“I knew I had to stay a little bit careful the first five gates,” she said. “And then I could let my horses run after.”

Gut-Behrami — who was third on Saturday — was happy to leave Beaver Creek with 140 World Cup points as she begins her defense of three crystal globes, including the overall.

“I’m really happy to leave with two podiums,” the Swiss star said after an uncharacteristically sporadic run. She was 16th after the first split, rallied in the second, but lost time again in the third sector before closing with the fastest fourth.

“(It) was a better run on the bottom than the top,” the 33-year-old said.

Having made her World Cup debut as a 16-year-old in Lienz in 2007, Gut-Behrami now finds herself in the position of ageless veteran, a sage skier posting the best results of her career. Last season was her finest yet, with 16 podiums and eight wins.

“I had no idea what was going on and what was expected of me,” she said of her teenage years. “Now, I’m at the end of my career, I have kids at home. It’s different for me, and I’m just trying to enjoy that.”

For the second straight day, Lauren Macuga led the U.S. Ski Team. The Park City native following up her career-best fourth-place finish Saturday with a 12th on Sunday. The 22-year-old said there was “good skiing” throughout but could tell right away “it wasn’t a podium-contending run.”

“I was really late kind of the entire way down,” Macuga said. “I just wasn’t on the line. It’s nice to know if I’d been on it, I think I could have been in there a little more.”

Like Goggia, she said Vonn gave her a few pointers from the bottom.

“She has so much knowledge on all the speed, everything. Just being able to talk to her and ask her all that is really helpful. Her course report definitely helps,” Macuga said. “She has an athlete’s perspective on it, and I mean, I think it elevates our whole team a lot.”

Next weekend, the World Cup travels to St. Moritz, Switzerland, where she earned her first super-G and downhill points.

“So, I know I can ski well there,” she said. “It’s nice everyone had the same advantage here, and I was able to put it out there and show it’s not about the experience. Once I learn these other tracks, I believe I can do what they’re doing, maybe better — we’ll see.”

Goggia made her World Cup comeback after a 10-month injury layoff this weekend. In St. Moritz, Vonn will put on a bib for the first time since 2019.

“I love her,” Goggia said. “I’m excited for her to be on the World Cup, and I’m really surprised that at 40 years old — it’s like me coming back from the injury: She doesn’t think. This is what I love.”