Crans Montana Speed Races Preview

After the 47th Alpine World Ski Championships inCourchevel-Méribel, the Ladies Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup returns in Crans Montana with two speed races.

Crans Montana (SUI)

February 25th Downhill / Women

February 26th Super-G / Women

Sofia Goggia won the first three Downhill World Cups events she competed in Crans-Montana. She has only won more downhill World Cup events in Lake Louise.

Goggia has won four Downhill races this season. She can win five Downhill World Cup events in a single season for the first time. The last woman to win five Downhills was Lindsey Vonn in 2015-2016.

With 21 wins Goggia is level with Federica Brignone on most World Cup wins in all events among Italian women.

In 2021 Sofia Goggia won both Downhills held in Crans Montana.

In the first one, Goggia finished 0.20 sec. ahead of Ester Ledecka, with American Breezy Johnson in third for the fourth time this season, 0.57 sec. behind Goggia.

A day after, Goggia won her fourth consecutive Downhill race. Lara Gut has finished in second place, only 0.27 seconds behind with Goggia's teammate Elena Curtoni in third place (+0.60).

The Italian also won the Downhill in the Swiss ski resort in 2019.

Last season Ester Ledecka claimed her second World Cup win in a Downhill. The Czech all-rounder, who won gold in the snowboard parallel in Beijing, beats Ragnhild Mowinckel in the first World Cup race after the Olympics. Third place went to Cornelia Hütter.

After finishing in the first Downhill held in Crans montana just off the podium in 4th place, her best position in the World Cup, Priska Nufer claims today her first World Cup win. Ester Ledecka finished in second place with Sofia Goggia in third place.

Lara Gut-Behrami has won three women's World Cup events in Crans Montana, two Downhills in February 2020, and a Super-G in 2021.

With 36 wins, Gut-Behrami is joint-eighth in the all-time women's list for most World Cup victories in all disciplines, alongside Katja Seizinger (36). Marlies Schild (37) is seventh.

Lara Gut-Behrami has won 18 Women's Super-G races in the World Cup, second-most behind Lindsey Vonn (28).

Ilka Štuhec finished 2nd-2nd-1st in her last three Downhill World Cup events. She has won 10 World Cups, including six in the Downhill. Only Tina Maze (26) won more World Cups for Slovenia.

Štuhec won the Women's Super-G World Cup event in Crans-Montana in February 2017. She could become the second woman to win a Downhill and Super-G at this venue, after Lara Gut-Behrami.

Jasmine Flury won the Women's Downhill world title in Méribel on 11 February. It was her first world title and her second win in a major competition, after a victory in the Women's Super-G World Cup in St. Moritz on December 2017.

Flury's only podium finish in a Women's Downhill World Cup was in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in January 2022 (2nd).

Nina Ortlieb took silver in the Downhill at the world championships in Courchevel-Méribel. Her first of two podium finishes in a World Cup Downhill was in Crans Montana

in February 2020 (3rd).

The last Austrian woman to win a World Cup Downhill was Nicole Schmidhofer in Lake Louise in December 2019. Andrea Fischbacher is the last Austrian winner of a Women's Downhill in Crans Montana in 2014.

Corinne Suter took bronze in the Women's downhill at the World Championships in Méribel. She can become the fourth Swiss woman to win a World Cup Downhill in Crans-Montana, after Gut-Behrami, Marie-Theres Nadig (1981), and Priska Nufer (2022).

Suter has won the Super-G at Lake Louise on 4 December. She has only once won multiple World Cup events in a single season: 2 in 2019-2020.

Marta Bassino won the Women's Super-G world title in Méribel on 8 February. The Italian has yet to win a Super-G event in the World Cup. She finished third in the last two.

Cornelia Huetter and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie rounded out the podium in Méribel in a joint third place +0.33 seconds behind Bassino.

For the 30-year-old Austrian skier who was fourth in the Super-G in the 2015 World Championships before being struck down by a series of injuries, Méribel's podium was a long waited reward.

Ragnhild Mowinckel or Kajsa Vickhoff Lie could become the first Norwegian woman to win a World Cup event in Crans-Montana. Mowinckel finished second in the Downhill in Crans Montana in 2022.

The only other Norwegian woman to finish on the podium in Crans Montana was Merete Fjeldavlie in 1992 (2nd in the Super-G).

Located on a sunny plateau at 1,500 m above the Rhone Valley, Crans Montana offers visitors an outstanding Alpine panorama over the most beautiful peaks in the Alps, such as the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc. The ski domain of Crans Montana (1500-3000) allows skiers and snowboarders to enjoy snow thanks to 30 lifts and 140 km of pistes including the mythical Plaine Morte and the National. The Mont Lachaux Downhill racecourse was remodeled in 2006-2007. The slope winds its way down from the spectacular Cry d'Err vantage point and on through the mountain forest down to the Barzettes ski stadium.

Crans-Montana stretches up to the Plaine Morte glacier at an altitude of 3,000 meters, where the first alpine ski race took place in 1911 when the English skiing pioneer Sir Arnold Lunn organized the world's first timed downhill ski race, on the high Valais plateau from the Plaine Morte glacier to Mollens. Crans-Montana has so far hosted more than 25 FIS European Cup and FIS World Cup competitions, two World Cup Finals (1992 & 1998), the European Cup Finals 2009, and the unforgettable 1987 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.