Marta Bassino wins the giant in Sestriere in front of Sara Hector-Corriere.it

The lightness of Martha Bassino he’s right about the power of Petra Vlhova and so the female giant from Sestriere turns blue, in the sign of the sixth victory in her career (twenty-third «top three») in the World Cup by the girl from Cuneo. Marta performs a real miracle in the last stretch of the Kandahar track: in the penultimate intermediate time she had gone well behind (29 cents) of the Olympic champion Sara Hector, but there she turned on the turbo and with a crazy acceleration she snatched an advantage of 11, decisive cents.

The Slovak, leader in the middle of the race, had to settle for third place, taking away the fiftieth podium from a Federico Brignone but finally rediscovered in his specialty of choice. Fede’s fourth place is a special and all in all sweet “wooden medal”, the result of a second run worthy of its quality. After the seventh place in the first descent, the Valle d’Aosta in fact melted away and in moments the coup escaped us: «Yes, I’m happy because I managed to find the courage to attack and ski as I know how». But this was the great day of Marta the Piedmontese, queen on the snow, home and ambassador of an Italy that in Val d’Isère also collected a comforting result from the males.

After the second place in Killington, Bassino takes the lead in the classification of specialties (Hector is 40 points behind) and in the next round, in Semmering between Christmas and New Years, will present himself with the red leader bib. She hasn’t dressed her since the magical Kranjska Gora brace of January 2021, the year she was the princess of the wide doors. Marta back at the top, Federica recovering: Italy is smiling again in a specialty she likes and the good news from Sestriere is that a new face has joined the brigade: that of Asja Zenere, 25 from Vicenza, a horse riding enthusiast, eleventh in the third race of his life in the World Cup.

There are still few of her appearances in the white circus, but the blonde from Vicenza has often been injured. In a few days she won for the first time in the European Cup and now she brings home this excellent result: «The value of the rivals – says Asja – is very high, but it’s not certain that I can fit between them too». We hope so, the “base” must be enlarged and the discussion also concerns the full recovery, in giant, of Sofia Goggia.

Our super-sprinter hasn’t yet found the right feeling with the discipline that had launched her to a high level in the 2016-2017 season: in Sestriere she missed qualifying for the second heat. No drama, however: «The conditions were difficult for me. And if Marta Bassino she managed to have a perfect touch, I felt like a lion in a cage. I was out of phase, in certain conditions I still struggle». But going back to giant slalom isn’t a losing battle, Sofia will try to find space in her dimension as a top sprinter (among other things with the upcoming St.Moritz races): «For the Christmas period, I’ll treat myself to a nice boulder of technical work. And I will certainly race the giant of Semmering».

We were talking about some finally positive signs from the gigantist front, even if in Val d’Isère the blue number one, Luca De Aliprandini, vice world champion, ran into the usual mistake once again and jumped already in the first heat. However, it didn’t go badly in Haute Savoie, where Marco Odermatt, World Cup leaders, he confirmed that he was in front of everyone between the wide doors and hit the third success of the season (one he got in super-G in Lake Louise) and the fourteenth of his career. But on the very inspired day of the Swiss champion, who ruled the Austrian Feller (already second behind him after the first descent) and the Slovenian Zan Kranjec (his great comeback instead: eight positions recovered), there was a bit of glory for the Azzurri. Italy finished with the 21-year-old in twelfth place Philip DellaVite (one of those of a much awaited nouvelle vague), with the thirteenth of Simon Maurberger and with the twenty-fourth of the veteran Giovanni Borsotti.

Above all, the second heat of the first two counts: Della Vite moved up by 7 positions, Maurberger, who qualified with the thirtieth and last time, even by 17: no one has gained so much. Of course, compared to the glorious days that we know well and unfortunately increasingly distant in time, they are still relative and marginal satisfactions, but at least we can say that at the end of a dark and disturbing tunnel there is perhaps a glimmer of light.