Marta Bassino defeated Mikaela Shiffrin to win the women’s super-G on Wednesday and give Italy its second gold medal at the alpine skiing world championships, with her American rival settling for silver.
Shiffrin led Bassino by three-tenths of a second at the second split but couldn’t match the Italian’s pace in the last part of the Roc de Fer course in Meribel, France, and finished second, 0.11 seconds behind.
Cornelia Huetter of Austria and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie of Norway both came 0.33 behind to share the bronze medal.
Marie-Michèle Gagnon was the top Canadian, concluding 26th overall.
The silver is Shiffrin’s 12th medal in 15 career world championship races and came two days after the American was heading for a possible medal in the combined event before straddling the third-to-last gate in the slalom portion. Federica Brignone won that race.
Bassino earned her second gold after winning the parallel event at her home worlds two years ago. She became the second Italian skier to win the women’s super-G world title, after Isolde Kostner won back-to-back golds in the mid-1990s.
Bassino is yet to win a super-G on the World Cup circuit, but did finish third in two races in January.
Many pre-race favorites, including defending and Olympic champion Lara Gut-Behrami and her Swiss teammate Corinne Suter, led Bassino by several tenths of a second before losing substantial time in the technically demanding middle section of the course, which was partly shadowed.
Bassino’s teammate Sofia Goggia, the Olympic downhill champion, concluded 0.76 behind in 11th. Goggia is a favorite to make it three golds from three races for the Italian women’s team in Saturday’s downhill.
American racer Tricia Mangan skied through a gate and had a nasty crash which broke her right ski, but she appeared to not be seriously hurt.
