(Reuters) – Italian defending women’s World Cup downhill champion Sofia Goggia won her first World Cup race of the season on Friday in 1 minute and 47.81 seconds, edging Switzerland’s Corinne Suter at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada.
Racing ninth, she finished 0.04 ahead of reigning Olympic champion Suter, with Austrian Cornelia Hutter taking third.
It was the latest superb performance from Goggia in the Canadian Rockies, after the 2018 Olympic champion won two downhills and the Super-G in Lake Louise a year ago.
She mounted a remarkable comeback to collect silver earlier this year in Beijing less than a month after she injured the cruciate ligament in her left knee.
American Mikaela Shiffrin, who is six wins behind compatriot Lindsey Vonn’s women’s record 82 World Cup race victories, opted not to take part in the downhills or Super-G events at Lake Louise in order to prioritize slalom and giant slalom training.
(Editing by Chris ReeseReporting by Amy Tennery in New York)
