The Alpine Combined Event started with a very demanding Super-G run: "turny" course set and bumpy snow conditions challenged the majority of the most awaited athletes like Petra Vlhova and Mikaela Shiffrin.
With those Super-G conditions, the tech-skiers came out to lead the first run of the day with Federica Brignone in first followed by her teammate Marta Bassino, chased by Wendy Holdener in third by 0.50 seconds.
"For sure it was tough. You had to inspect really well and know where you are always and predict and watch the others",” Brignone said of the Super-G course. "But we are on the World Cup and we have to ski good if it’s tough, if it’s easy, if it’s icy, if it’s soft. You need to be prepared and ready for everything. There are some conditions where you are the best and somewhere you are not. But you just have to fight always".
Federica Brignone skied a solid slalom run, and she claimed her fourth Alpine Combined win on the World Cup circuit, and it firms up a good run of form that has lifted her to second in the overall World Cup standings behind Shiffrin. Swiss double combined world champion Wendy Holdener almost did enough to catch the Italian reducing her half-second deficit from the first run to 0.15sec on the second, and she climbed up one position overtaking Marta Bassino.
"For starters, Wendy is a great slalom skier. And today it was the kind of slalom that if you don’t really go fast, you can take a lot and you can lose a lot. It was for slalom skiers because it was tight … and not steep, not icy, so it was an easy one. Normally, I’m not that good at those slaloms", Brignone confessed. "In the flat, I was losing a little bit the rhythm and I said, ‘This is never going to be enough".
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