Sawt Falasteen - Olympic champion Goggia claims Cortina downhill with Winter Games looming

Italian Goggia, who is also defending World Cup downhill champion, took the honours on home snow with a time of one minute, 6.98 seconds, 0.20sec ahead of Austria's Ramona Siebenhofer.

Czech Ester Ledecka completed the podium, a further 0.06sec back.

Goggia, who has now won four of this season's five downhill races, took the lead with her run at seventh in the schedule, overtaking and staying ahead of early leader Siebenhofer despite a run which was far from textbook.

The 29-year-old threw herself down a piste shortened due to windy conditions in the Dolomites in a wild, at times raggedy effort which nonetheless gives her a significant lead at the top of the downhill standings.

She has 400 points, 136 more than Siebenhofer, who jumps above Breezy Johnson after the American was forced to sit out the race following a training run fall.

Goggia sits third in the overall standings on 769 points, although she is way behind leader Mikaela Shiffrin and defending champion Petra Vlhova, neither of whom took part in Saturday's run who both have over 900 points.

There is one more downhill race this women's World Cup season -- at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany -- before the top skiers decamp to China for the Winter Olympics which starts on February 4.

J.Saleh--SF-PST