the program of the second week – Corriere.it

Today, Monday February 13, the World Ski Championship observes a day of rest: the date was also available for any recovery in the event of bad weather, which fortunately did not occur thanks to the light and sun conditions that also exist in the Courchevel area, site of the men’s trials, and in Meribel, where instead girls compete. Tomorrow, Tuesday 14th, we will enter the week of technical disciplines. The first appointment, at 12.15, will be the parallel mixed team, alias Team Event. Each nation has three men and three women available, but only four competitors are in the race (2+2) and the others are available as reserves. Italy, which in 2019 won, somewhat surprisingly, the bronze medal, ranks among men Borsotti, Della Vite and Vinatzer and among women Bassino and Sola are sure, the third will be indicated as soon as possible by the technicians. After this appointment, Wednesday 15th, the individual parallel. And here the memory goes to Cortina 2021, where Marta Bassino managed to win gold on an equal footing with the Austrian Katharina Liensberger (who this season plunged into an unexpected crisis of results). The World Cup will then continue on Thursday 16th with the female giant and on Friday 17th with the male giantSaturday 18 with the women’s slalom and Sunday 19, closing day, with the men’s slalom.

After the two titles in Brignone (combined) and Bassino (super-G) Italy marked the pace and also received the great disappointment of the mistake that prevented Sofia Goggia from winning a medal in her downhill. What should we expect from the Azzurri in the technical week, given that we are still second behind Switzerland in the medal table? On paper, the most favorable day is that of the female giant, where both Bassino and Brignone are candidates for the podium and even for victory. But as the verdicts of 2019 and 2021 teach, even the parallels could be a mine to explore. In the men’s giant, a specialty in which Luca De Aliprandini won the silver medal two years ago behind the French Faivre, unfortunately expectations are much lower: De Aliprandini never repeated himself and arrives at this appointment with the lights off (in the hope that he will be able to turn them back on at the right moment), but also the rest of the team – apart from Filippo Della Vite who at the moment seems to be the leader – does not lead to optimism. Having said that in the women’s slalom we have no hopes – unless there is curiosity to weigh some recent promising jolt of a young group -, we arrive at the men’s test between the rapid gates: Tommaso Sala and Alex Vinatzer they will lead a group that will try to knock on the doors of the discipline elite. Vinatzer in particular, fourth in Cortina 2021 and slightly mocked from a podium perspective, will have the opportunity to finally take the road to glory that many predicted for him: at the age of 23, it is time for him to put his great talent to good use and that, above all, , know how to best manage the various situations that arise in the race.

Finally, we also need to look at foreigners.
The most awaited character will certainly be Mikaela Shiffrin
: after having thrown away the gold in the combined with a fork in the slalom and having lost to Bassino in super-G, the one who is preparing to take away the record of successes in the World Cup from Ingemar Stenmark cannot leave Savoy without at least one title . Here then is that the American will want to make up for it in the giant slalom and above all in which, net of the mistake in the heat on Monday 6, she remains largely the best.

In the women’s field there will then be curiosity around Petra Vlhova, a champion who seems to have lost her enamel and who has decided to give up speed to focus above all on giant slalom and slalom, and Lara Gut-Behrami (two golds and a bronze in 2021, zero titles up to here in Savoy), while among men Marco Odermatt will try to add the gold in the giant to that of the downhill, thus leaving the Norwegian Kilde, his great rival who won only two silver medals, without victories. Finally, Austria: it hasn’t won a race yet (it has two silvers and three bronzes) and running out of successes is not an acceptable thing, even if it has already happened in history, by a leading skiing nation.