Gut finds her groove in Lake Louise super-G

Large amounts of overnight snow, bad visibility, and a lowered and twice-delayed start time didn’t put a damper on spirits in Lake Louise on Sunday as Swiss phenom Lara Gut walked away with the win, clocking in a time of 1:02.68 seconds. Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather found the podium for the first time this season in second, a slim 0.10 seconds behind Gut, and fiery Italian Sofia Goggia nabbed her second podium of the week in third, 0.59 seconds off the pace.

The morning’s outlook was less than stellar as heavy overnight snowfall forced the Snow Dogs course crew to fire on all cylinders in order to clear the snow before race time. After inspection, organizers determined to lower the start to the Coaches Corner jump and delay the start one hour. After an additional 15 minute delay, racing action finally got underway at 12:15 local time under light snowfall and cloudy skies.

The fifth racer out of the start, Weirather blasted her way through the falling snow and set the early time to beat. Two racers later, Gut took to the course wearing bib seven and left nothing to chance, holding a slim lead to the finish and crossing the line just one tenth of a second ahead of the Liechtensteinerin. Goggia, wearing bib 10, managed to recover from an early bobble to slide comfortably into third, 0.59 seconds behind Gut.

“It’s cool,” Gut said of her win. “I wasn’t skiing really well at the top, so I understood that I should change something and from the middle on, I tried to keep a really straight line and be aggressive on the skis. I’m happy it paid off. Yesterday and the last days, I had the feeling I was finally starting to build something.”

After a slower start to the season than she had hoped for, Weirather’s first trip to the World Cup podium this season was a much needed confidence boost as the tour heads back to Europe.

“I was pretty angry after yesterday, so I tried to put that anger into skiing today,” she explained. “That helped me for sure and now the confidence is up and I hope to keep it going. Sport is exciting, you never know what happens, but I know what I have to do; keep working hard and one day it will work.”

Sunday marks the third career podium for Goggia, all of them coming this season and each being in a different discipline with a third in the Killington GS, a second in Friday’s downhill, and her third-place finish in Sunday’s super G.

“I’m pretty speechless, actually,” Goggia said. “I’m pretty happy with my results even though I made a little bit of a mistake today in my skiing, but still I made my third podium in a row so it’s like a dream for me.”

Jaqueline Wiles led the way for the American contingent in an impressive career-best 10th place finish from bib 38. Laurenne Ross was close behind in 14th and Breezy Johnson continued her strong start to the World Cup season in 16th from bib 50. Alice McKennis also charged from bib 55 to 20th place. Mikaela Shiffrin and Stacey Cook landed in 34th and 35th place, respectively, as Leanne Smith finished in 47th and Anna Marno found herself in 49th.

“I am so thrilled,” said Wiles. “I had high expectations in the downhill and fell short, so I had no expectations today. I knew that you had to charge it really hard; I think that’s what I do best so I just gave it my all and I’m very, very happy.”

Johnson has enjoyed an impressive string of results in Lake Louise with her finishes reading 11th, 21st, and 16th, each time with a high bib number. The Jackson Hole native is eager to bring this hard-earned momentum over to Europe in the coming weeks.

“I’ve been working hard all summer and it’s really great to see some payoff when the pressure is on and the cards need to be laid,” she said. “It’s really exciting.”

The women’s tour now heads to Sestriere, Italy, for slalom and giant slalom races Dec. 10-11.

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Top 10

1. Lara Gut (SUI) – Head/Head/Head
2. Tina Weirather (LIE) – Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
3. Sofia Goggia (ITA) – Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
4. Kajsa Kling (SWE) – Head/Head/Head
5. Ilka Stuhec (SLO) – Stoeckli/Lange/Marker
6. Viktoria Rebensburg (GER) – Stoeckli/Lange/Marker
7. Corinne Suter (SUI) – Head/Head/Head
8. Nicole Schmidhofer (AUT) – Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
9. Nadia Fanchini (ITA) – Dynastar/Lange/Look
10. Jaqueline Wiles (USA) – Rossignol/Rossignol/Look

Official Results