Sawt Falasteen - Goggia grabs second Lake Louise downhill victory

Italy's Goggia, who swept the three Lake Louise races last season, clocked 1min 28.96sec to finish .34sec ahead of Austria's Ortlieb -- who started 26th and knocked Olympic downhill gold medallist Corinne Suter into third.

Suter, second to Goggia on Friday by just four-hundredths of a second, set an early target with a time of 1:29.33, but was surpassed by both Goggia and Ortlieb -- who squeezed into second by just three-hundredths of a second.

It was a dream podium finish for Ortlieb in her first weekend of racing since she suffered severe knee injuries in January of 2021.

She notched her third career World Cup podium finish after a super-G win and downhill third place back in 2020.

Goggia, who was dissatisfied with her winning performance on Friday, said she achieved the improvements she was aiming for.

"Today was a quite perfect run," she said. "There was a lot of wind at the start. We had to be focused and committed today.

"I skied the perfect run I wanted to in my head."

Goggia's success at Lake Louise means she'll be sorry to see the venue dropped from the World Cup calendar next season.

"The last two years were unbelievable for me here," she said, although her memories of Lake Louise stretch back further.

"Here I broke my knee in 2013 and in 2016 got my first podium in the speed circuit here.

"And now winning five in a row is incredible. It is sad we won't race here again but I think FIS will find a good replacement."

For 26-year-old Ortlieb, second place was the culmination of a long rehabilitation road.

"It was a huge relief," she said. "The last months were really hard so I felt so good and was super-thankful for everyone who helped me come back."

Austrian Cornelia Huetter, who finished third on Friday didn't start Saturday's race, the second of three scheduled in the Canadian Rockies where a super-G will cap the action on Sunday.

Ski Austria said in a tweet that Huetter was sidelined by a headache and mild trouble with her vision.

Goggia is out to repeat the Lake Louise sweep she produced last year as she made a storming start to the season.

Her campaign was disrupted by a super-G crash at Cortina, but the Italian came back to take downhill silver behind Suter at the Beijing Winter Olympics and garner enough points to claim a third downhill crystal globe.

Last season's overall World Cup winner, American Mikaela Shiffrin, is skipping Lake Louise, preferring to focus this week on technical training ahead of a giant slalom and slalom in Sestriere next weekend.

Shiffrin, who won both opening slalom events at Levi, Finland, last month, still tops the overall standings with 265 points.

Goggia's two wins in Canada have her in fourth overall with 200 points -- the same total giving her a 60-point lead over Suter in the downhill standings after two races.

S.Barghouti--SF-PST