1:17.34. Malorie Blanc won the women’s super-G in Crans-Montana on Saturday, 0.18 seconds ahead of Sofia Goggia, with Breezy Johnson third at 0.36. It was the 22-year-old Swiss’s first World Cup win, in her second World Cup podium, and the last women’s World Cup race before the Milano Cortina Olympics.
| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time / Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Malorie BlancSUI | SUI | 1:17.34 |
| 2 | Sofia GoggiaITA | ITA | +0.18 |
| 3 | Breezy JohnsonUSA | USA | +0.36 |
| 4 | Roberta MelesiITA | ITA | +0.42 |
| 18 | Federica BrignoneITA | ITA | +1.28 |
Home snow, taken freely
Blanc is from Ayent, about 20 minutes from the finish. Her account of the race was two sentences: she knows she can ski fast and struggles to find the time to do it, and this is her home, so she tried to ski freely. Her only previous World Cup podium was second in a St. Anton downhill a year earlier.
The order behind her shifted late. Melesi led for a while and was heading for her first podium when Johnson came down from bib 29 and pushed her to fourth, 0.06 back; it was Johnson’s first super-G podium, and she said she had always wanted to be good at super-G and had struggled to put it together in a one-run format. Laura Pirovano was 0.58 up at the final split and missed a gate near the finish. Goggia, who had the hill in her court and said so, extended her super-G lead to 60 points over Alice Robinson.
Vonn
Friday’s downhill was called off as snowfall closed the visibility down; Vonn was the third of the first six starters to crash. She hurt her left knee and did not start the super-G. She dropped to third in the super-G standings, 90 points behind Goggia, and was nine days from the Olympic downhill in which she shattered her left leg.
The weekend’s tone
The organisers stripped the event of its usual festivities after a fire at a bar in Crans-Montana in the early hours of New Year’s Day killed 40 people and injured 116. Signs at the venue read: “Our thoughts are with you.” Camille Rast, who is from the town, had worn a black armband winning both races at Kranjska Gora four weeks earlier.
Numbers
- 0.42: first to fourth.
- 18: World Cup races before Blanc’s first win, on the FIS count.
- 8: first-time winners in 2025/26. Blanc was the seventh.
- 26 days: the gap in the women’s World Cup calendar that began the next day.
Franjo von Allmen won the men’s downhill on the same hill on Sunday by 0.65 from Dominik Paris. Then the tour went to Italy, and did not race a World Cup again until 27 February.